


we made ourselves cold

by apricotcake



Series: long is the road that leads me home [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Bottom Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Flashbacks, Food Issues, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Handwaving, I Made Myself Cry, I promise this ends well, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Nightmares, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Not Canon Compliant, POV Second Person, Past Brainwashing, Past Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson (minor), Past Torture, Please Don't Hate Me, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Red Room (Marvel), Romani Bucky Barnes, Romani Yelena Belova, Sam Wilson Is Not Your Fucking Therapist, Sharing a Bed, Slow Build, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Top Bucky Barnes, Top Steve Rogers, Yelena Belova (mentioned) - Freeform, sorry but its true, standard winter soldier trauma warnings, translations provided at the end of each chapter, very very very mild but i’d rather tag unnecessarily than not at all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 17:47:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 125,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29888226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apricotcake/pseuds/apricotcake
Summary: On the Roosevelt Bridge, hot spring sun beats down on your head and blinds you as you meet the eyes of the man you’re meant to kill. You meet the eyes of a man who utters a word (a name?) that somehow means nothing and everything to you.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Natasha Romanov, James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: long is the road that leads me home [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1604464
Comments: 28
Kudos: 27





	1. PROLOGUE

**Author's Note:**

> hello, hello, it's been a WHILE!
> 
> this is a sequel to my romani!bucky fic, [there's no pure way to say it](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22289947/chapters/53233648), so if you haven't read it i suggest you do so! this sequel is also highly self-indulgent because i desperately needed to give bucky a chance to heal.
> 
> to returning readers, i've missed you and i hope you enjoy. we have a long journey ahead and i'll be updating frequently!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fic title is from 'landscape with black coats in snow' by richard siken.

The tank hisses as it opens and a body is dragged out. Eyes bleary, limbs numb and heavy, red with chilblain. The world is a smudgy mess. There are hands, pulling and tugging. Voices droning on. There is the taste and smell of plastic, throat spasming at the intrusion. The body is restrained and the world turns white.

This is standard procedure.

-

A tube inserted in the stomach. Flashlight in a pair of eyes that continue to roll.

_ Вы понимаете меня? _

_ Да. _

_ Now, answer the question in English. Do you understand me? _

_ Yes. _

_ Flex the fingers of your right hand. _

You flex the fingers of your right hand. You remember your purpose.

-

A folder, a target, a location.

You check the wind and perch on a rooftop. You watch your target through your crosshairs and pull the trigger. He slumps against the wall, smearing it with blood.

Mission accomplished, and with flying colors.

Another folder. And then another. And then another. Seven men die in less than an hour, all by your hand. It’s slow and requires getting close. The bodies are mangled and all but unrecognizable. You were meant a message.  _ Tread lightly. _

It is not the first time you’ve been used for personal affairs.

You are taken back to base, spattered with blood. Your handler is pleased.  _ Goddamn bloodbath _ , Rumlow says to Rollins, sounding exhilarated,  _ guy’s an animal.  _ Their voices are booming and rife with filth. English still sounds sharp and dirty to your ears, but Siberia is a long way away. You aren’t even supposed to remember Siberia.

You were not made to be prideful, not made to be smug, but you feel the faintest pinch of it. Someone claps you on the shoulder. It leaves a pang somewhere in your hollow chest.

-

A report, a dose, a feeling of numbness.

It’s cold inside the tank, but still, your eyes shut. They don’t open for a very long time.

This is standard procedure.

-

Your missions are bloody and unstrategic, riddled with holes and not enough information, like you’re not privy to it. 

You are a ballistic let loose on the world around you, and your thoughts may be difficult to grasp, flying in different directions as you reel from shocks and the drugs slugging through your veins, but you know you can fight cleaner. You know you can be better. You want to be better. Your failures are constant and your handler is merciless. You are no longer beaten, face turned to a pulp by guards, but the dark steel halo of The Chair sinks down on your head and surges  _ on, on, on. _

You bite through your tongue. You choke on watery vomit. Piss runs down your ankles. You slip off the seat in a heap on the floor, soaked in your own filth.

-

In the darkness of your handler’s kitchen, you are given a new target.   
  
Two targets, to be exact.

-

On the Roosevelt Bridge, hot spring sun beats down on your head and blinds you as you meet the eyes of the man you’re meant to kill. You meet the eyes of a man who utters a word (a name?) that somehow means nothing and everything to you.

Even when you’re strapped to The Chair once more, it sticks stubbornly in your head. The wipe doesn’t hold. The techs and the doctors are bewildered, and you can use that to your advantage. You have a window to run and seek out an answer, but your body is weak and rubbery, convulsing. Head spinning. Eyes rolling back into your skull.   
  
The shocks begin again. 

The voltage turns up.

-

There are three rifles aimed at your head when you’re brought into the Triskelion. The subbasement is dim and smelling of nothing in particular. Cold sweat beads at the back of your neck.

“This is only precautionary.” Pierce’s voice is clear and crisp as he comes closer, eyes on whoever is guarding you. He’s wearing something to protect his face. You wonder what you did to bring on such a requirement. “If Captain Rogers wants him, he’ll have him.”

A fluorescent bulb flickers just behind him. Your eyes drift toward it and you don’t look him in the eyes. He rips the mask from your face and it clatters to the ground.

-

The world is in flames.

Wind whips around you. Your eyes burn with it. Your body is failing you, splintering apart. You’ve been left here to die with only Rogers as witness, speaking in riddles and pleading with you, face crumbling in your desperate grip. Blood squelches in the thin, intricate plates of your fingers. Your throat is raw from screaming. Your body shakes with exertion. With anger. With fear, white-hot and paralyzing.   
  
You have been fed lies over and over again, time after time, but one truth remains. This is what you were made for. The mission is all you have left.   
  
“Then finish it,” Rogers croaks, wet with blood and phlegm.   
  
Your ears ring like an explosion has gone off when he speaks and some shriveled, long-sleeping part of you wakes to say  _ God, no. No, no, no, no. _

The helicarrier groans and the floor collapses. You hold onto the remains of a beam and watch his bloody, broken body tumble down into the Potomac, vision obscured by thick, dark smoke, swirling down your throat. Fire rages above you, searing and insistent. You’ll die crushed by debris or die of your injuries. Which is more honorable? Do you deserve an honorable death at all?   
  
No matter the answer, you let go and tumble downward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Вы понимаете меня? = Do you understand me?
> 
> Да. = Yes.


	2. Chapter 2

You break the surface gasping.

The water is bitter in your mouth and you groan, a bone-shuddering sound rattling from your burning lungs. You’re kicking frantically, keeping your head above the water as best as you’re able. You can swim. Of course, you can swim, but your body fights against you, slacking with the injuries it’s accumulated. The spine, the legs, the hips, they all burn. The shoulder, dislocated from its socket, is trying to pop back into place, and smarts the harder you use it to propel yourself forward.

You didn’t question the instinct when you jumped, but you question it now. You’re being weighed down, your chances of survival are growing slimmer by the second. You should let go. You should let Rogers sink to the bottom of the Potomac along with his shield and subject him to a watery grave.

But you don’t. 

You don’t let him sink.

Rogers is dead weight, his head lolling back against your left shoulder. You wouldn’t be able to hold him otherwise. Your injured arm wouldn’t support him, but it’s good enough to help you forward, to guide you as you kick toward land. It seems to be getting further away, like a nightmare.  
  
You’ve never had a nightmare. You’ve never had one because you don’t sleep. You weren’t made to sleep. You don’t know why you would think of such a thing.

You swallow another mouthful of water and spit it out. You don’t sink. When Rogers’ head slips below the surface, you haul him back up. Hold on tighter.

This isn’t part of the mission. Your objective was to neutralize, to clean the mess Rogers was trying to make. That was your only objective.

You aren’t sure when that changed. 

Was it the knowledge that your mission was complete? Was it the implication that this was your last mission? That someone was bound to find you, to decommission you, like they threatened to so many times?

Was it Rogers himself who undid it all?

You aren’t sure, but you know you have to keep swimming. It doesn’t feel right, or wrong, it just _is_. It is fundamental to you as breathing, as the blood running through your veins.

It’s impossible to tell if Rogers is breathing. You could be carrying a dead man to the shore. You could be doing this for nothing, but there’s something you need from him. You need an answer and you don’t know what that answer is, but it’s somewhere behind your teeth, stuck in the back of your throat, and you need his help to pull it out.

Another mouthful of water. The sun blinds you. The smoke blinds you. Everything burns. Everything hurts. You’re so close to land. You can’t stop now.

You’ve waded through freezing water before. You’ve sat for hours in the cold waiting for your target, swathed in white with snow in your mouth, waiting until time stopped mattering. There was no shivering then. None at all.

When the riverbed brushes the toes of your boots, you stride until you can let Rogers’ body sink into shallow water, drag him to land by a strap on his suit. It leaves trails of blood in the murky water. His torso is dark with it,. His shoulder is soaked in it. Red-tinged trails sluice off his face, from his slack mouth.

He looks dead. You hope he’s dead, and you don’t, but you aren’t sure why. Blood loss and exhaustion leaves the bank blurring, shifting into obscurity. Becoming as incoherent as your thoughts.

Your mind doesn’t wander this often, because you aren’t allowed to think you don’t allow yourself to be distracted by outside forces, you don’t allow yourself to think about anything but the mission at hand.

But the mission is over. You were given no rendezvous, meaning your handlers are not looking for you. They’re all dead, lost in the rubble of the Triskelion. You don’t know how to feel about that. You don’t think you feel anything.

The mud under your boots sloshes with every step, makes it harder for you to keep moving. Rogers’ body drags behind you, and the mud catches on his suit, on his skin when you drop him at the shore, just far enough away to keep the water from lapping up at his ankles.

He doesn’t look powerful now. He doesn’t look like anything but a man, but _you_. You can’t say the same for yourself. You’re not human. Not really. Your mismatched hands say otherwise. 

You watch Rogers, motionless on the ground. The cuts on his face weep watery blood. The left side of his face looks like raw meat, mangled and irritated by the filth in the Potomac.

He doesn’t move, he doesn’t breathe.

Until he does, slow and trembling. Not in the rush you half-expected. You imagined he’d surge upward, eyes open and disoriented, but he’s too weak for that now.

You could finish the mission. All it would take is suffocating him, covering his nose and opened mouth until all the breath in his lungs fizzled away.

Maybe he’s not far from death at all. His wounds won’t heal fast enough to stop the blood loss he’s already sustained. The super serum can do everything but reverse that.

Besides, there are helicopters in the distance, hovering closer and closer. If you’re found, you’ll be thrown to new handlers or taken by the government, shoved in a box-like room until you answer questions you may or may not know the answer to.

You can’t do that. You can’t do any of that. No matter who takes you, you’ll end up with a bullet in your head, your body dissolved in acid, or thrown in pieces into uncharted waters.

So, you have to run.

It doesn’t even occur to you, not really, not until the woods are thickening and you’re walking without any real direction, until you can’t see Rogers anymore, not even when you look back with a question you can’t bear to voice.

_Who are you to me?_

-

There is no way to breathe without feeling pain. The putrid water from the river has irritated your countless wounds. They sting feverishly when the wind hits your exposed skin.

You strip as you walk, dazed. You left the tac vest somewhere behind you. The empty holster, too. All that remains is a soaking wet, sleeveless compression shirt, durable pants, and heavy boots that are now even heavier with water. 

You have never felt so exposed. You have felt vulnerability in the faces of your handlers and in the face of pain, but you have never felt as naked as you do now.

The sun is dipping low now, the air turning cold. The body, soaking wet and feverish with pain, shivers miserably, and fails you again. Just like the legs, the flesh arm, the neck, the head, the eyes. It fails you. It burns.

Your body wants to run. It wants to survive. Your legs are propelling you forward, into the woods, to find whatever it is looking for—sanctuary, perhaps. Somewhere to hide. To ride out the inevitable storm brewing.

Somewhere nearby, a stream babbles on. You barely hear the sirens now. You rest against the trunk of a tree, eyes falling shut of their own accord. Your head slumps forward, and that’s when you hear it.  
  
Footsteps headed your way.

You conceal yourself between the trees, watching a sweat-flushed face come down the trail, frantic. He talks into a cellphone, promising he’s trying to get out of the are. He’s uninjured. Dressed for a hike. He’s close to your height, give or take an inch.

When he pockets his phone, you rush forward.

Your sloppiness doesn’t matter. You feel wild and untethered, and when you knock the man to the ground, he’s turning grey with fear, mouth open and breathless.  
  
“Oh, God,” he croaks out, hands raising shakily. Your arm is pressed down on his chest, knees bracketing either side of him. “No, please—please don’t hurt me. You know about the shit going on right now, right? Right? I’m just trying to get back home, _please—”_

“All I _want,”_ you snarl, voice in shards. His face blurs in front of you. You blink hard. “Is your jacket.”

“Take it! Here!” he babbles. He struggles underneath you, and you allow him to scramble backward, knelt down as you watch him. He whips the jacket off off like it’s on fire, tosses it at your feet. He breathes out, wet. “Just please don’t hurt me. Please. Do you want my wallet? I’ll give you my wallet. I won’t say anything, man. I won’t even call the cops. Even when things die down, I won’t call the cops. I just don’t wanna die like this, okay? Please.”  
  
He’s blotchy with fear and shaking all over. Men have looked at you this way before, but you have no reason to kill this one.

You’ve already spared one person today.

“Not your wallet,” you say, aware of how hoarse your voice is. You’re dripping with blood and water, arm on full display. No wonder he looks like he’s going to piss himself. “Just the cash.”

A frantic nod. “Okay,” he whispers. He gulps down a breath, sniffs hard, and reaches into his pocket. “Okay, okay, okay. This is all I have on me. All of it. Look—” he opens the wallet and sure enough, it’s empty. “Just take it. Please.”

He throws the bills on the ground, right beside the jacket. It’s more than you expected. You look up at him from the curtain of your hair and say, “Now go.”

The moment the words leave your lips, he rises up on trembling legs, getting his footing before he runs past you. You can hear him cursing, swallowing down breath after breath.

Once he’s far enough, you pick up the jacket— grey windbreaker lined with thick black fleece—and shrug it on. It’s still warm from his body, smelling faintly of sweat. You zip it up and count the money slowly, forcing yourself to focus. Two hundred and seventy five dollars.

More than enough to survive off of.

You unzip a side pocket, slip it inside, and force yourself to keep walking. You were ingrained with the instinct to survive in any way possible. Perhaps your current handlers didn’t instill that as diligently as your previous ones, but the urge to stay alive is all you have left.

-

Your body knows something you do not. 

It has always kept secrets from you, but this time, it wants to tell you what that secret is. It must want you to know, because it makes you continue forward. Concealed by trees, you trudge through woods on the side of a main road until you reach the city and the monuments, the squat buildings beckon you forward. _Getting warmer, warmer, warmer,_ the body seems to say.

Perhaps it has good intentions. Your feet guide you down far away from the commotion. Your mind forces itself not to think about what you left on the riverbank. There’s no time, because your body says to run.

You have no masters to obey. Not anymore. Not with all of them dead. 

Your body will be an adequate replacement. It will be enough.

-

The controls in the left arm may be compromised, but you have to find a way to draw attention away from yourself.

Your flesh arm is weak and tender with hurt. The fingers are trembling and thick with dried blood and dirt, lodged under gnarled, overgrown nails.

They don’t cooperate for a moment when you try to open the compartment in the hollow forearm, with easily moveable plates and intricate fastenings to keep it all in place.

It opens for you, just enough to be fiddled with. It takes only a moment before the right switch is found, and a mask of unblemished flesh appears over the plating. The last thing you want is to draw any more attention to yourself. You cannot steal more than you have. You cannot make a scene.

You cover the compartment and keep moving. If you don’t, you’ll fall. If you fall, you won’t stand up again.

-

You walk until you find yourself on the side of a main road, and from there, you make your way onto eerily quiet streets.

The streets are marked. 31st, 22nd, 19th. 18th. You are pushed forward on shaking legs that ache and want to give out, but they won’t. They stop in front of a building tucked away from the bustle of the street. You’ve long since dried, but you look bedraggled, coated in your own filth, hood hiding the bruises and cuts on your face.

Head aching, skull splitting in two, you breathe in and look around. You realize you recognize this area. Recognize this street.

Your mind paints a picture. _Scaling the roof and aiming your rifle through the window, setting your eye in the scope. Black leather jacket. Eye patch. Running at breakneck speed with someone on your tail. Then, a rush of red and blue hurtling toward you. You catch it without effort. How could you have done that? Someone else did this, too, but broke his fingers the first few times. You were bandaging them constantly with two flesh hands, curses spat from a mouth that wasn’t forced into silence._

You scale the roof, just as you did before, and slip through Steve Rogers’ window. Unlocked. Sloppy. _Тупой мудак,_ the mind says, and you lock it.

Your shirt and pants have dried like a second skin. Moving becomes even more difficult than before. You need new clothes, save for your jacket. It’s vital that you blend in. Your handlers, if any are left, must be evaded.

This is not something you’ve considered before, or maybe it is, but still, you know it to be true. You don’t want to be found.

The apartment is empty, as you expected it to be. Rogers won’t be here for days, all due to the injuries you inflicted. Broken cheekbone, gunshot to the stomach, stab wounds. The debris scratching over his body as he sunk into the Potomac. The water in his lungs.

How long did it take for his team to find him? Has he died of his injuries? 

If Rogers has the same poison running through his veins, the same running through yours, he’ll survive. His body is durable. His body will heal despite the odds.

Which means you can’t stay long. 

If he finds you—

Thinking that makes you sick. It makes you shiver all over again. You walk into his bathroom. First aid is not necessary. The cuts and scrapes are healing over. It still hurts to swallow. You can feel the phantom pressure of Rogers’ arm locked around your throat, cutting off airflow until brown spots invaded your vision.

But there’s still your shoulder to deal with.

You exhale and hold your arm out in front of you, and then with a crack, you pop it back into its socket.  
  
The pain is blinding.

You don’t scream. Your mouth tastes of blood.

-

If you’re going to blend in, you have to clean the filth from your body. The shower gurgles before it turns on and you strip nude, step under the spray.  
  
An involuntary noise from the throat, weak and animalistic. You shrink away. Goosebumps pimple everywhere. It’s too cold. It’s _too cold_ . _Freezing_ . The legs seize up beneath you, the eyes prickle, _not the hose, please please please not again please._

The water hitting the tile sounds like gunshots. The cold feels like bullets. It feels like a hose breaking your ribs. The roar in your ears sounds like mocking laughter, all as sharp and cold as the spray.

You knew showering. You showered in barracks with other men in Russia, but your handlers didn’t know that. The Russians wanted you to function. They wanted a soldier, not a child. The Americans preferred the hose. It was painful. It was humiliating. It was another form of punishment. Another form of torture. Another way to remind you that you were lesser.

The left hand does not shake, so the left hand must be the one to fix it. It pulls a latch and water gurgles from the faucet rather than the shower head. The left hand finds a knob and turns, turns, turns until the water flows warm, almost hot but not quite. Muscles loosen. The right hand reaches forward and touches the water, and dirt sluices off of it.

You sit on the cold rim of the tub and watch it fill with water. Let it lap over your feet and recall the memory of salt in your nose. Gentle wind comes off an ocean, and feels like fingers sliding through your hair. A steadying, soothing motion.

You’ve never felt soothed. By anyone or anything. You feel like you’ve been living with a gun aimed at your head in almost every memory, save for this one.

It’s impossible to place. You feel wet sand squish beneath your toes, the sun beating down on your back. There’s another language in your ears, but you can’t make it out. You don’t feel good in this memory, there’s a bite of discomfort to it, but this moment is peaceful. This moment belonged to you.

Hot air, tropical and thick. The dizzying smell of orchids. You don’t recall any missions near any beaches, save for one in Cape Town, chasing down a target with a face that blurs into obscurity. You were dressed in a tuxedo tailored to fit you, told to wear cologne so strong it masked the scent of blood and sweat lingering on you. That was a mission for the Russians. The Americans didn’t use you for espionage, for undercover work.

You don’t remember much of the past, but there is a line, a definitive shift that tells you when or where these memories take place, and that is something you’ve struggled to hold onto, but held onto nonetheless.

-

When the tub is half-filled, you sink into it. The water is warm, but there’s the faint pinch of a memory, one that makes you think it’s too cold.

You remember fear. You remember panic. The air was close and wet. There was a rag on your face, water being poured over your mouth and nose. Your body was held down by restraints. Your lungs burned for air, your bonds cut into your right wrist. _Ты хочешь умереть как собака, солдат?_ a voice asked. Your hearing was clear despite the roar in your brain. You were dragged up by your hair. The rag slid off with a wet slap, but you couldn’t see. _Или ты хочешь жить?_

Unable to breathe. Unable to think. This was not reprogramming. This was punishment. For...for...for insubordination. You refused to do what your handlers asked. You refused and refused until you were punished. The hand in your hair twisted tighter. You grunted and gurgled, spat water out in your lap.

Another failed assignment. Someone you were meant to hurt, to kill. Just like today.

You said, _Я хочу жить_.

You don’t know why you did. It would have been so much easier, dying then, but you had to stay alive. You had to, and you know it was the right course of action, even now.

The rim of the tub is cold when you grip it to center yourself. The memory is not happening now. You were in a cold, dark room, then. Rogers’ bathroom is pale tiles and muted walls with warm light that doesn’t hurt to look at.

Everything is too loud, too senseless. You lean back until the water brushes the back of your head, and sink beneath it, shutting your eyes.

It’s not so much of a roar now. Just a soft rumble. The bath water is warm and soft against your skin. Your knees are bent only slightly. The tub is big enough to fit you. It makes you feel strangely small, not unlike a child. You open your eyes, look at the shifting shapes above you.

The ceiling doesn’t look the same. For just a moment, it seems lower and squatter. The water is warm and soapy. You can hear voices nearby. A woman’s voice calls out. You can hear footsteps. It doesn’t make you edgy. You aren’t afraid. _Come on, Jamie, don’t scare me like that._

You pull yourself up and pull a breath in, frantic, as you push your hair from your face. There are phantom sensations rushing over you as you blink water from your eyes, rub the droplets away. A washcloth rubbing at your back and behind your ears, someone tipping your head back and pouring warm water over your hair. Someone scrubbing you dry. _Where is he, where is he_ . The woman’s voice again. The towel is over your head, and then you can see and you can’t as she says, _eta lo!_

She kisses you on your cheek, scrubbed clean. She’s young. Pregnant. You can’t see her face.

Everyone comes from somewhere. Everyone is born. Everyone has a childhood. A family. A home they grew up in. You knew, deep down, you must have, too. You came to the conclusion long ago, but it slipped your mind for so long because as much as you tried, you didn’t remember being a child. Not until now.

You were young once. You had a roof over your head. You had a mother. A father. Maybe you had siblings. Maybe there were lots of them, or maybe that was just one of the lies you were fed on the rare occasions you asked about the life you couldn’t recall. You can’t be sure.

You can’t be sure, but now you’re certain you once had a name.

You had a name, and it was taken from you.

-

Thinking makes your head hurt even more than it already does, so you try not to think at all. It isn’t as hard as you thought it would be. It’s what you were trained to do, after all.

You lather with soap, suds up a body that feels like it's been hit by a semi-truck. You lather dirty, unkempt hair with shampoo that smells like nothing in particular. Rogers wouldn’t like anything scented. He would avoid flowery scents or anything overpowering to the senses. He prefers simplicity because it’s what he knows. He takes what he can and doesn’t indulge, even though he has the means to do more than that. He is a creature of habit. He is a man out of time, just like you.

You don’t know how you know these things, about Rogers or yourself. You just do. You let it all wash over you like the warm water you rinse your hair with. It’s slightly softer and less tangled when you run your fingers through it, clean and pushed back from your eyes, flat against your skull and tickling the nape of your neck.

The bathwater has turned cloudy with dirt and dead skin, with soap and dried blood, so you pull the stopper out, and let it swirl down the drain. Your skin is unblemished and has suds sticking to it, sliding down your legs. You notice one of your toenails are missing, but it doesn’t hurt. You wonder when that happened. You wonder how long it will take to grow back. 

You’ve never wondered that before. You were never the one to handle your injuries, not unless you were alone in the field, which wasn’t often. Whispers of the words _volatile_ and _untrustworthy_ spring to mind, and you remember a pair of eyes always trained on you.

A rifle, too, just in case something went wrong.

You dry off with a white towel from the rack beside the tub. It’s not paper thin and rough like you expect it to be. It doesn’t scratch against your skin. It’s thick and soft between your flesh fingers. _Gentle_. It’s not a word you use often. You have no reason to use it, because gentleness is not something you associate with yourself, but it’s the word your tongue was trying to shape around.

The towel is big enough to wrap around your waist. You secure it when it slips down your hips, wipe your hands on it before you look up, before you catch your own gaze in the mirror.

You’ve only ever caught flashes of your reflection in a window, in the glasses of a target, or in security footage before you wiped it, but this is the first time you’ve seen more than a glimpse. There were no mirrors where you were kept. You were kept from mirrors entirely.

_Did they not want you to see your own face?_

For a moment, you imagine yourself distorted. Imagine your face blurred and senseless like you’re gazing into a rippling river. You may have done that once. Felt damp, cold wind on your face and soft, dead grass under your knees. 

Dead grass, naked trees, grey sky. Everything around you always dead, dead, dead.

But for now, there is no death. Only the plain walls and warm light and the rug beneath your feet. You can see yourself without any trouble. The steam from the mirror has long since faded, and it’s jarring, how vivid your reflection is. How clear and sharp it is.

Despite being clean, you look as worn as you feel. Your face has healed, but it’s gaunt and miserable, pale with pain and a lack of sunlight. Your eyes are almost colorless, too. Maybe blue, maybe grey, and ringed with bruise-like shadows. Your hair is dripping wet, dark and slick like oil, curling at the ends.

It’s tangled. Overgrown. You consider chopping it all off, but you don’t want a blade near your neck, even if it’s your own hand. Your flesh fingers are already feeling weak and unsteady for reasons you can’t explain.

You’ll tie it back. Tuck it into a hat, maybe. You’ll throw away your clothes. You’ll need new ones, anyway. _Rogers has plenty of clothes_ , you think, and shut the lights off, leaving your reflection behind.

-

The floor is cold, but it doesn’t bother you. You allow yourself to look around as you walk down the hall. Bare walls, no picture frames, no decorations. Nothing personal.

You would imagine a bedroom to be comfortable. It’s a place for sleep, after all, but Rogers’ is as lifeless as the rest of the apartment. You’ve been in homes to bug them, to track a target down and kill them there when they least expect it, but they almost always feel lived in. There are rings on coffee tables and indentations in couches, the indents of footsteps in freshly vacuumed carpet, but there’s none of that here.  
  
It must be SHIELD issued. There are too many places he can be watched. The walls are thin. There are plenty of places to hide a bug without him noticing.

Rogers hates the apartment. This observation is not important, but you allow your mind to run, to come to its own conclusions for once. You’ve never been able to do that. You think you might be good at it, though. Good at picking things up, understanding them. _A fast learner_ , someone said once. _Perhaps even faster now._ _The serum tends to affect the brain, too._

You try not to think about that. You flick on a light switch, and open the drawers, the closet, search through both until you find what you need.

You pull a grey t-shirt over your head, step into a pair of briefs. Then jeans, then socks. A logoless baseball cap. You can wear your boots for now. Hidden under civilian clothes, they’ll blend away. The clothes smells like Rogers’ soap.

It’s like any mission, you remind yourself. You know how to make yourself fade into crowds. You know how to make yourself unremarkable, just a face in the crowd. You can barely recall the last mission like this, though. It’s all shadows and senseless flashes. 

It must have gone wrong. You rarely remember the missions that go wrong.

You aren’t sure where Rogers’ weapons are, but you can’t take any. Surely, he’ll notice someone broke in, but if you take any weapons, that will make it obvious it was you. There are bound to be knives in the kitchen. Good, sharp ones, all stored in a drawer. One of those will have to do, and with any luck, he won’t notice their absence.

Besides, if anyone comes for you, you’ll take _their_ weapons. You’ll take everything they have before they even try to take you.

You aren’t sure where this urge came from, but it doesn’t feel new. There’s something as old as time unfurling inside of you, waking from a long slumber, and it whispers _run_.

-

The stolen clothes are soft against your skin. Like the towel was, but...better. The shirt is light and doesn’t rub against you. The denim is rougher, but it’s not unpleasant. The socks feel best. They’re woolen and warm, and the persistent chill soons drains from your feet.

With your hair drying in waves, curling behind your ears, you sit on Rogers’ stiff couch and weigh out your options.

It’s tempting to stay where you are,but it’s a risk. You risk Rogers coming back, and even if he doesn’t, the apartment will soon become a beacon of action. Someone, whether it’s SHIELD or HYDRA, will come ransacking the place, and you can’t allow yourself to be caught by either of them.

According to the television, bright and glaring in the dark, the HYDRA leak might be the biggest in history. So many names and faces flash up on the screen, interviews from survivors covered in plaster and bystanders who watched it unfold from a distance. There’s footage of the Triskelion crumbling to pieces, the helicarriers falling from the sky, a discreet video taken during Rogers’ speech echoing through the building. It all makes your head ache to the point of nausea, and so you shut it off in a rush, plunging the room into darkness, save for the hazy orange streetlights slipping through the drawn curtains. 

You scrub your hands over your face, and rest them there, fingers threading into your hair.

You stay like that for a very long time.

Somewhere in that stretch of time, exhaustion settles on your shoulders like a weight, and you lift your head, watch the clock tick on the wall. It’s barely ten o’clock. There are sirens blaring outside. Someone is shouting curses that echo even this far up. The sounds of the city. 

It’s almost calming.

You don’t feel exhaustion, but you suppose this is what it feels like. You’re sure that if you were standing, you’d be liable to collapse, so it only makes sense to rest. To recharge. You won’t get far otherwise.

This, you think, is almost like a reward for how far it’s taken you, for finding you shelter, for keeping you alive all this time, so you let your body take the reins rather than your mind, and lie back.

The couch is rock hard beneath you when you shift onto your side, the throw pillows awkward and uncomfortable against your neck, too stiff, but there’s not much you can do about that. You refuse to sleep in a bed. Your mind drifts to sleeping on cold, wet ground with mud seeping into your clothes or hot sand with a sunburnt arm thrown over your eyes, or a rickety, lumpy bed in the dead of winter, curled around a smaller body, shielding it from the draft while chasing after warmth on your own. You wonder who it is, this body with breaths that rattle in the silence. You think of Rogers on the edge of the river, spitting up water before you left him behind.

You tumble into sleep feverishly, thoughts veering off course before you can even try to make sense of them.

-

There’s a scream on your lips when you jolt awake, thrashing against restraints that aren’t there. When you open your eyes, it’s the sun that blinds you, not flickering fluorescent bulbs. The sun has snuck through the windows and warmed the apartment up, has left you warm, too.

You don’t ever sleep. Not really. Cryo isn’t sleep. Sedatives aren’t sleep. All they do is cast a thick, impenetrable fog over you, bring eventual unconsciousness, but never _rest_. You don’t dream, either. You’ve only had blurry, yellow-tinged hallucinations as you came off the ice, and those faded as suddenly as they appeared.

You don’t feel any better; even though your aches and pains are gone, even though your head is clearer. You feel worse. There’s a sick, hollow feeling deep inside of you and it makes you hurt in a way that feels visceral and familiar. You want to shut your eyes again. You want to sleep again, but you have to move. You can’t stay here any longer than you already have.  
  
You gather your old, sodden clothes in a small plastic bag and leave through the window again, feeling a painful twinge in your chest as the warm spring air hits you.

You don’t have time to wonder if Rogers will try to find you. There are other, more important things to worry about.

That’s when your feet hit the metal rungs of a ladder, and your stomach growls at the exact same moment.

There’s no one to monitor your body now. No one but you. You must maintain it, because it is weak. It needs rest. It needs food and water. Not a thick sludge of whatever sustenance it required to function pumped directly into your stomach. Your fingers trace over the knotted scar where the feeding tube once was. It’s one of the only scars that refuse to heal, since the wound is reopened so often. You can’t rely on it now. You have to rely on yourself.

Your body needs nourishment, and you have to provide it.

-

After you get rid of the clothes, you venture onto the street.

You have plenty of money, but you still know you have to make it stretch. Nothing lasts forever. As you walk, no one glances in your direction. Rogers’ clothes and the stolen jacket feel like a disguise. A cover, and a decent one at that.

You slip into a 7-Eleven and a chime sounds as you walk inside. You keep your cap low on your brow, try to avoid the cameras, and walk to the fridge, absently grab a bottle of water, ice cold against your fingers. You walk to the counter, you notice food under a heat lamp. 

It’s cheap, you can afford it. You can fill your stomach for a while and figure out what to do next. There must be somewhere you can go for a while. A library, a park, a coffee house, somewhere you can sit and formulate a plan.

“Can I help you?” the clerk behind the counter asks, snapping you out of your thoughts.

Your words get caught behind your teeth for a moment, but you force yourself to speak, swallow around the dryness of your throat. “Just this,” you say, voice hoarse from disuse. “And the hot dog.”  
  
It comes out of your mouth automatically, and in your mind’s eye, you picture exactly how you’re going to eat it. You think of it piled with ketchup and mustard and relish, sitting in the hot sun beside someone, splitting it between the two of you. Wherever this was, you felt a rush of excitement. You looked down at a crowd, at...a sports game. A baseball game. _Ebbets Field_ , you think in a rush, and try not to get swept up in it, even though your chest feels tight with it.

“Four bucks,” the clerk says, and you slip a crumpled five from your pocket. He gives you your change, the water, and the hot dog in a small container. He places both in a plastic bag. “Condiments are over there.”

You might thank him, you aren’t sure, but you walk out without staying too long, feeling like you’ve messed up somehow, but you aren’t sure why.

You find a spot to sit, and open the container, pick up the hot dog. The bun is soft against your fingers, and when you bite into it, it’s too hot, but you don’t care. Your stomach feels even more hollow than before, painful and sharp.

It’s hard not to eat quickly, to force it down your throat. The mind conjures up a sound, a voice. _Ni mishto, Jamie, you’ll make yourself sick_ _like that._

That name again. That voice. Words in a language you thought you wouldn’t recognize, but feels as right as any other you’ve spoken, or even moreso.

You don’t want to make yourself sick. You have to keep your food in your stomach. You have to make your money last. You can’t afford to lose either of these things, not until you figure out a way to survive.

So, you finish your food slowly. Take sips of water rather than gulps, and you end up feeling fuller than you expected by the end. The ache in your stomach is easing away, the migraine sharpening between your eyes finally dulling.

It gives you the strength to keep going, and that’s exactly what you do; walk until the neighborhood changes and the streets are different, the sun thankfully hidden behind towering office buildings.

-

There’s a poster at a bus stop, advertising the newest exhibit at the Air and Space Museum. _Captain America: The Living Legend_.

The— _your_ body pushes you toward the bench beside it. You can spare money for the fare. You’ll walk wherever else you need to go afterward. You’ll find somewhere to stay, whether that’s hidden behind a dumpster or swallowing your fear and returning to Rogers’ apartment, it doesn’t matter. As long as you have somewhere to lie your head.

As long as you have somewhere to hide.

-

You get too hot waiting for the bus, and even when it arrives, it’s almost the same temperature inside. You sit down in the back and take your stolen cap off. You run your fingers through your hair, turning damp with sweat. You look around, take in your surroundings. There’s a man leaning against the railing at the front, staring intently at his phone. A woman with a child sleeping in her lap, and another leaning against her shoulder. A boy sat across from you has his eyes shut, and a pair of headphones on, head lolling to the side.

No one notes your presence, no one pays you any mind. You aren’t important here, you aren’t scrutinized or pushed to act or not act. You’re a face in the crowd and nothing more. It’s almost relieving. Almost.

You watch the city rush by until you reach your stop. When you get off, the sun hits your face, warm and bright. You squint against the glare and pull the brim of your cap lower as you follow the crowds of tourists. You force your shoulders to slump, stick your hands into your pockets, and let yourself slip into obscurity, shrouded by the cover of constant, hectic movement.

-

It’s blissfully cool in the museum, and it’s busy enough that you don’t stick out like a sore thumb. There are children rushing everywhere, shoving past you to get to the exhibits. Lining themselves up with Rogers’ height from before and after.

There’s a picture of him from before, skinny and short with a grimace on his face. Floppy blond bangs. A big beak of a nose that’s too big for his face. _Only thing he didn’t grow into_ , your mind whispers with something like affection. Something in your chest is twisting not-so-painfully, but it still hurts. Somehow, it still hurts, and you try not to wonder why, try not to let yourself think about it.

But that’s when you see it.

That’s when you see your own face staring back at you. 

There’s no way to lie to yourself, to avoid the truth, because it’s _you_. Shorter hair, a little less sharpness to the face, determination in the eyes. The photo is blown up, with long lines of text. A biography you can’t bear to read. Above it is a year of birth and a year of death.

There’s a voice over a loudspeaker, and it echoes through the room. _Best friends since childhood_ , it says. _Barnes is the only Howling Commando to give his life in service of his country._

It speaks of a childhood you don’t recall save for the smallest glimpse. It speaks of a death you didn’t die and can’t recall. 

_Can’t or won’t?_

Your mind seems to supply you with a rush of cold wind, and snow in your eyes, but every memory of death and pain is shrouded in an eternal winter, so you can’t make sense of it now. Just thinking of trying makes your head hurt.

The ache doesn’t fade as you walk around, almost dazed. Your face is everywhere. On the posters of the Commandos. In a candid, somewhere behind Rogers in European wilderness. In a photo with the Commandos, with a cigarette stuck between your teeth. There’s a man with a bowler hat who has his arm around your neck. You don’t recognize him at all, not until you press one of the buttons that allow you to hear a clip of each member’s voice. You don’t recognize the words as much as you do the volume of it. You press the others, too. Morita and Jones and Dernier and Falsworth. The words of each seem to get lost in the chatter of the people around you.

You press Rogers’ next. It’s something light-hearted, but it sounds...different. There’s something artificial to it, and you wonder if it was made after he was thawed out of his icy prison. You wonder if the Smithsonian allowed him to keep any scraps of what they’d unearthed in the decades he’d been buried under the Arctic Ocean.

There’s a child beside you pressing Rogers’ button over and over again as you linger over your own. _James ‘Bucky’ Barnes, circa 1944._

 _“Oh, I just bet you are, pal,”_ it says. You press it again, listen for a clue that isn’t there. It’s so mundane it doesn’t produce anything—a memory, a feeling—at all, but you know that the voice is your own, even if your voice is weak and hoarse from lack of speech now.

You move away from it quickly, as quickly as you move away from the film reels, one of them is a loop of Rogers grinning beside Barnes. No, beside _you_. Your faces scrunched with laughter.

You didn’t know you could laugh like that. You didn’t know Rogers could either.

Your heart pounds against your ribcage when you find yourself in a section of the exhibit focused on the earlier years of Rogers’ life. There are very few pictures of him as a child. In one of them, he can’t be more than four years old, sat in the lap of a young woman with hair as blonde as his, all delicate features and bony arms, wrapped tight around Rogers, on the front steps of what must be their tenement.

There’s a photo of him when he’s a little older, scrawny and short with noodle-like limbs, with another boy, and something deep and visceral, tugging at your guts, tells you this, too, is you.

You force yourself to look at it. You force yourself to read the text beside it— _Rogers and Barnes, circa 1928._

You trace your finger over the boy’s face through the glass. There’s no weariness to his expression, no anger lined in his eyes. What was it like, being that young? What was it like being that elastic, being blissfully naive, not being able to fathom the world to come?

Your throat closes before you even look up at the next photo.

_(from left to right) Rogers, Barnes, and Barnes’ sister, Rebecca Barnes-Proctor, circa 1932. Photos donated by Barnes-Proctor in 1997._

It’s from a photo booth and has to be one of many pictures. Three faces round with youth, one bright with sunburn and two tanned dark and flushed with heat, even without any color. Rogers’ face is young and soft. Your face is almost the same, just softer, grinning brightly. Your hair is slick with sweat and wavy from the salty air, and Barnes’ sister— _your_ sister. _You had a sister_ —is your spitting image, even as young as she is. 

Rebecca. Becca. _Becks_. All curly hair and a smart mouth, with her front teeth missing for what seemed like forever.

The picture turns to a wet smudge and all you can think is _oh_ when the tears leak down your chin, over your jaw, hot and slippery, and your body feels tender, pained the longer you look at the bright faces in front of you.

Your body feels weak and miserable. Your body is yours, and can no longer be a separate being. Your mind is yours, too. The memories are yours, but they’re like a knife driven between your ribs, twisting until you want to scream, double over with it. The pain in your chest is white-hot and raw, throbbing. It’s grief, grief for a life you’re struggling to remember. It’s _loss_. It’s—

It’s too much. You can’t stay here anymore.

-

You get your bearings in a bathroom stall, with your head between your legs, your lungs tight and uncomfortable. Your fingers twisted in your hair as you try not to let the tremors wrack your body, try not to let a single sound escape past your lips. There’s too much information flooding into your head, making it spin uncontrollably and oh, if it would _stop_ , just for a _minute_.

Have you ever gotten this far? Have you ever remembered this much before you were caught?  
  
You don’t think so. You must have relied on instinct, rather than allowing yourself to use your senses, use your brain, because a part of you knew you couldn’t do anything else but that. Not with your handlers so close by, not with the drugs running through your bloodstream.

Those must have worn off. It didn’t take very long for the effects to fade, which is why you were dosed so often. Your body fought against the poison they pumped into you. Tried to do what it could until your mind caught up.

You swallow around the knot in your throat. Wipe your eyes with your palms. Breathe in, too shaky for your liking, and push out of the stall, out of the museum and away from the crowds, back into the heat and onto the sidewalk.

Staying in DC any longer means leaving yourself vulnerable. Whoever is left from HYDRA must think you’re dead. Gone down with the helicarriers, rotting at the bottom of the Potomac. Let them believe that.

  
But before you do anything, before you find a way out, there’s something you need to do.

-

All it takes is watching the news through a window for a while, watching until a story about Rogers’ appears, and even though you can’t hear much of it, even though the subtitles are off time, you’re able to piece together the fact that he’s still hospitalized and in critical condition.

You don’t know what you want from him. You don’t know why this temptation is growing, spreading through your insides like a fire.

You don’t want to kill Rogers. You don’t want to undo what he’s done, you don’t want to find the remains of HYDRA. You ran for a reason. You dragged him from the Potomac for a reason, even if you’re not fully prepared to admit why yet.

But you need an answer. You _want_ an answer. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Тупой мудак = Dumb asshole
> 
> Ты хочешь умереть как собака, солдат? = Do you want to die like a dog, soldier?
> 
> Или ты хочешь жить? = Or do you want to live?
> 
> Я хочу жить. = I want to live.
> 
> Eta lo! = There he is!
> 
> Ni mishto = literal translation is 'not good', but phrased like this, it's more like saying 'that's bad' or 'that's not right'


	3. Chapter 3

Another bus. another seat toward the back. It’s emptier this time, and you aren’t sure what to think of that. In one way, a crowded bus makes it easier to hide, but the silence is preferable right now. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to think straight.

The sun is hanging lower in the sky, streaked with orange and blue, reflecting on the linoleum, on the bus seats, on your thigh. It’s warm against your head, but not unpleasant. Your stomach is feeling hollow again, but you won’t eat unless you have to. You think you’ve done this before. You think you’ve done this many times. Sometimes, food was scarce. You know why you might know this, but it’s hard to admit it to yourself.

It’s hard to think of yourself as anything but what you are now.

-

Hiding in plain sight is easy. Peering over a desk top with a list of patients is easy, especially when you slouch and let an artificial smile plaster itself on your face, lie about who you’re here to see. You’re given a wristband and directed to the elevators without much trouble.

All of this requires no effort, but sneaking into Rogers’ room lined with two armed guards clad in military gear might be more difficult.

It means you have to wait, and wait, and wait, until there’s finally a change in shift, and the hallway is clear. You sit in a waiting room, which is funny in a strange sort of way, but there’s a sense of familiarity to it.  You’ve done this before. You’ve sat with your hands clasped together in a rickety chair, with your leg bouncing just as it is now, waiting to see someone. 

Waiting to see Rogers.

You shut your eyes, and try to picture it. The hospital smelled like it does now, sharp and clean with an undercurrent of something rotten. You felt anxious, like you were anticipating the worst. Your hatred of hospitals, of doctors, has always been there, but there was a stretch where that hatred became bone deep fear, and you try hard not to think about it.

Besides, that’s when the guards finally change shifts, and the door is unguarded.

Maybe it seems too easy, simply walking in, but that’s exactly what you do. No one pays you any mind. No one notices a thing. The endless rumors and stories describing you as a ghost do so for a reason.

You shut the door with a soft click, and there’s something off about this. You expected Rogers to find  _ you.  _ To catch you off guard soon enough, or that maybe one of his teammates would. The Widow or the Falcon, or maybe both.

It’s impossibly quiet in Rogers’ room, and the light is less harsh. It’s dim, and made softer with the growing dusk outside the window. He’s not hooked up to any machines, just a drip that must contain morphine. Looking at it makes your insides turn slick and cold. You think of skin healing around a needle. Think of a brain and limbs that feel useless, mushy.

You wonder if Rogers feels that way now. He must. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be asleep.

From here, he doesn’t look as striking, as enormous as he seemed on the helicarrier. When you dragged him to the edge of the river, he looked more like a man, and you can see that’s still true, see what’s underneath when the costume is stripped away.

The cuts on his face have long since healed, but the left side of his face is a mess of greens and yellows and browns, all because of you. His shoulder is bandaged beneath his hospital gown, and surely his torso is, too. You wonder if he bled internally. You wonder just how close he came to death before he was found.

You almost don’t want to move closer. Whether that’s fear of the urge to finish the job or the fear of Rogers waking, you aren’t sure. It could be both.

But you don’t have a choice. There are too many questions swirling around your head, and your curiosity makes you take a step forward. Your curiosity makes you sit on the chair beside his bed.

It’s cold and stiff beneath you, meaning that if anyone was here, they left hours ago, maybe at Rogers’ behest. He doesn’t seem the type to have friends who would give up on him easily.

Rogers’ chest rises and falls, slow and deep. Wind rustles through the trees outside. It’s swiftly getting darker. You hear thunder somewhere in the distance. If there’s a storm, you aren’t sure where you’ll go after this. The thought of being here for longer than you planned makes you unspeakably anxious.

You stuff your cap in your pocket, run your hand through your hair. It’s jarring, using your arm’s cloaking feature, and you think you’ll only use it when you absolutely have to, because looking down at what appears to be two flesh arms makes your stomach drop to your toes.

You lean forward in the chair with a squeak. You watch Rogers’ fingers twitch in his sleep. There’s a shift, the whisper of sheets.

And then you look up to find him awake, staring a hole through you.

-   


There’s shock in his expression, but it’s cut with a wariness that sharpens his gaze. Perhaps he doesn’t think you’re worth saving now, maybe the magnitude of how deadly you are has finally weighed down on him.

If he were smart, he’d press the emergency button on the remote beside him or let the men outside know of your presence, but he only stares at you.

You stare back.

You do this for what feels like ages. The rain is picking up outside, falling heavier against the window. The swelling in Rogers’ eye is gone, but not in his cheekbone. You must have broken it. You aren’t sure how to feel about that. You wonder if you’re capable of guilt.

Rogers’ throat works and he turns to stare in front of him, at nothing in particular.

“Do I wanna ask how you got in here?” His voice is rough with pain and hazy with morphine.

You don’t realize you’re clenching your jaw until you allow it to relax. 

“I,” you begin. Your voice is just as rough as his. You swallow, try to catch the words rising up your throat before they turn to dust. “Walked through the door.”   
  
You don’t think your response is funny, but Rogers huffs through his nose. “Past the goons outside?” he asks wryly.   
  
“I waited for them to change shifts,” you answer. The fingers of your right hand worry at the cushion beneath your arm, picking at the vinyl covering. The thunder has gotten louder, the wind picking up. The wet leaves of a tree smack against the window.

Rogers looks back at you, gaze flickering over you with something like hurt etched into his face. “So, it was you,” he says, but he sounds like he already knew the answer. “You pulled me from the river.”

You can’t meet his eyes. You feel like your skin has been peeled back, like he can see right through you, and maybe he can. You wonder if your fear is knowing him, too. You wonder if you’ll see him clearer if you allow yourself to look for more than a second.

“Tell me why,” Rogers presses.   
  
“I don’t know,” you say quickly, even though that’s far from the truth.

“Yes, you do,” Rogers says. There’s a different sort of pain in his face, making him go pale. He’s moving too much, aggravating his wounds. Gunshots shouldn’t take more than a couple of days for someone like him, but he lost so much blood, he could be incapacitated for longer. “I know you do.”

Maybe Rogers wants answers, too. Wants the answer to so many questions he doesn’t even know which one to ask. You flatten your mouth into a tight line, ignore the itch scratching inside you, the one telling you to run away.

“I went to the Smithsonian,” you grit out, and your neck prickles as your eyes slip to the floor. Too white, too clean. You find yourself looking for a drain in the floor, and the memory of it—filthy and clogged with blood and vomit—makes you feel sick. “I saw your exhibit.”

Rogers says nothing, but you can feel him watching you intently. waiting for something you aren’t sure you’re capable of.

“There were...pictures,” you continue, and notice you say  _ pitchers _ rather than  _ pictures _ . You clasp your mismatched hands in front of you, wring the right with the left, a feeble attempt to center yourself. You wonder if you did this before, or if this is a new trait. “Pictures of me. Of both of us. Film reels, too.”

When you look up, Rogers is staring at you like you’ve explained the universe to him, or showed him the proof of something or someone above it all. Were you religious once?

“I thought you were lying,” you continue, and your voice is even weaker than before. “I thought you were lying to me, but I...” your heart is beating too quickly. It’s getting hard to breathe. You know you’re imagining the feeling of being watched, but it won’t go away. It leaves your shoulders creeping up to your ears.

You’ve been here before. You’ve  _ remembered _ before, remembered yourself, your life, so many times until it was taken away from you, and it’s all rising to the surface, roiling deep in the center of your chest, in the back of your head.

Rogers said your name in the middle of a freeway, shook something loose in your mind before it was screwed back into place, made pliant all over again, but now you remember it. Now, you can keep it close. You don’t have to lose it again.

“I don’t know what to do.” The words punch out of you, and you know it’s true. You have no mission, no handlers, no base. You’ve been cut loose and you’re running in circles, trying to make sense of yourself and the world around you. “I don’t know what’s left of HYDRA, or if everyone’s dead, but if they’re not—”

“If they’re not then I’ll get you to a safe house,” Rogers says, frantic. He’s pulling himself up, more energetic than he was moments ago. “Somewhere off the grid, remote, hell, in another country if that’s what you want.”

“ _ No _ ,” you snap. You shake your head, scrub your hand over your mouth, feel the scratch of stubble growing on your chin. “No. No one can know I’m here. Not SHIELD, not your friends,  _ no one _ . If the wrong person finds out, I’m back where I started.”

You shoot off the chair, because you can’t bear to sit down, and your eyes swivel to the door. Rogers grabs your wrist, fingers curling around metal. “Bucky, wait,” he says, holding on with more strength than you expected. You barely feel it, just a whisper of pressure, but you  _ feel _ it. “Don’t go. Please.”

When you meet his gaze, you’re struck with a memory so vivid it almost takes your breath away.

There’s a little room and a bed, and you feel young. The room smells like sickness, like the wet spring air coming through the window, like the waxy warmth of a candle. There’s a droning voice that turns your spine to ice, and Rogers—he’s so young and lost in the throes of a fever, grabbing your wrist, stopping you in your tracks. His skin is blotchy and red. from his fingers to the top of his head. 

He’s asking you to stay, and you  _ can’t _ . He’s dying and you can’t watch him die, you can’t watch his mother clutching her rosary while a priest prays over him with a withered hand on his forehead, endlessly muttering _ I commend you, my dear brother, to almighty God, and entrust you to your Creator. May you return to Him, who formed you from the dust of the earth. _

You wrenched your hand away even when Rogers called after you, and you ran from the apartment with your heart in your throat, took the stairs two at a time until you could dash down the street. You wanted to be with Rogers, but you couldn’t watch him slip between your fingers.   
  
You remember a shelf with a rosary and the tiny statues of saints, the bottle of holy oil and holy water. You remember lying beside it trembling, sick with fear, praying to a God that may not have been listening at all, your tears soaking into the rug beneath your head.

And you feel the weight of it. You feel it as deeply as the blood in your veins, the pound of your heart. The memory is flaying you to the bone and your eyes are stinging again and your innards are twisting into knots and you have to leave, you have to, but you have to know—

“Why?” you ask, and you want it to be biting, but your voice comes out weak, strangled. You meet Rogers’ eyes. “Why would you want me to stay, why would you want to  _ look _ at me—”   
  
“You know why,” Rogers says.

“After what I  _ did _ ?” you finish, and wrench your hand from Rogers’ grip.

Rogers looks like you’ve shot him all over again. “Buck,” he says, raw and wet.   
  
“Don’t call me that.” Your fists are clenched at your sides. The right loosens and tenses, loosens and tenses. You can feel your unkempt nails digging into the soft flesh of your palm.   
  
Rogers doesn’t say anything, and neither do you. You just watch him as he watches you, not daring to let his gaze fall away. Maybe he’s afraid you’ll try to run otherwise.   
  
The room suddenly feels confining, and the stale smell of a hospital is growing stronger, stinging your nose like smoke, like something is burning. Burnt paper, burnt rubber, burnt  _ bodies _ , stinking like meat and fear. You remember when you smelled that. You remember being restrained, but you don’t think you would have been able to move anyway. Fear had a grip on you, and it made your limbs weak as water.   
  
“I could have been sent here to kill you,” you say, and try to keep your voice steady this time, even though you’re taut like a rubber band, prepared to snap. You wonder if Rogers sees it. Wonder if your body is betraying you despite the venom you spit his way. “I could still be their—I could have been sent by them, trying to get into your head. I bet you didn’t even think of that.”

“If you were here to kill me, I’d be dead,” Rogers argues. “I’m not gonna sit here and pretend like I don’t know what you’re capable of, but I know...” he stops himself, and you can almost see the cogs in his head turning. The furrow between his brows deepens. He’s still too pale, and the sight of it is making your head swim. “I know that wasn’t you on the helicarrier. I know whatever you did wasn’t your choice. It was HYDRA. It was always HYDRA, pulling the strings wherever they could. It’s not blind faith, it’s what I know is true. I knew that for sure when I woke up on the bank.”   


You can’t help wondering if maybe he’s given up on looking for Barnes, for the friend he lost, but sees something in you. Something worthy of forgiveness, of mercy. Would he offer that to you? 

Would you take it, if he did?

Rogers’ voice is muffled by the fall of rain, by your blood pounding in your ears when he says, “Can I ask you something?”

You’re unsure of what to do with your hands, so you stick them in your pocket. You don’t speak, but you’re not saying no, and Rogers can see it.

“What do you remember?” he asks.   


Your mouth goes dry. You have no idea how to answer him, because admitting it is giving up, admitting it is handing everything over but...

But Rogers is the furthest from HYDRA you can get, and he won’t twist your memories into incoherency. They won’t be stolen away. You won’t be punished for them.

You grind your teeth together, clench your jaw hard enough for it to hurt before you speak.

“I had a mother,” you answer, hoarse “And a sister.”   
  
“Yeah,” Rogers says, and he looks grave, despite the smile trying to pull at the corner of his mouth. Something in his face is giving, cracking under the weight of your words. “Yeah, you did. Your ma’s name was Winnie, your sister was Rebecca.”   
  
“And I remember you,” you say, and that sucks all the air from the room. “This high, and  _ dying _ on me.”   
  
You motion to a spot just below your sternum when you say it, voice cracking on the final word. You quickly lower your hand. You can almost picture the boy from your memories there, and it leaves your chest feeling too full, fit to burst. It’s painful, a jab that goes bone deep. Looking back at Rogers doesn’t help. The bruises under his eyes, the paleness to his face, none of it helps. It just makes you feel worse.

“I should go,” you mutter, not so much to Rogers, but to yourself. You’re wasting time staying in DC. The longer you stay, the more you risk. “I should go, I have to—”   
  
“Just tell me if you’re gonna come back,” Rogers says, and it’s almost pleading. No, it  _ is _ pleading. He wants you to stay. He wants you to remember. He thinks you can be Barnes again if you do, and that’s something you’ll never, ever be able to achieve. “Please.”

You shake your head. “I can’t.”

“Where are you gonna go, Bu—” Rogers cuts himself off, swallows hard, throat bobbing. Like he’s swallowing the name down. “Where will you go?”   
  
The rain might be difficult to walk in, but you’ve been in worse conditions. Snow and sleet, hail the size of golf balls beating down on your back, stinging like the spray of bullets.

“I don’t know,” you answer. It’s not a lie. It’s the truest thing you’ve said to him since you’ve arrived.   
  
With that, you walk straight out the door, hands stuck in your pockets, shoulders slumped. The guards won’t chase you, because you’re not running. You have a feeling Rogers will say something in your defense, despite you leaving.  _ Leaving again. Always leaving. _

_ Where will you go?  _ Rogers asked.

You’ll figure it out. You have a bad habit of finding ways to survive despite your circumstances.

-

The rain lets up, and you walk until you find a bus stop, you watch them pass and pass. You sit on the damp bench and breathe in the damp air and think about Rogers in his hospital bed a few blocks away.

Has he called anyone? Told them about your visit?

If he truly was your friend once, he wouldn’t say a word. Maybe he’s waiting for you to come back. 

Maybe you should turn around.

No. No, it’s too risky. You don’t know who’s who, don’t know who has eyes on him. Someone in the intelligence community might recognize you, and that’s the last thing you want, to be locked in a little room with a window the size of your palm. Perhaps they’ll want an asset, too. Their doctors might want to pick your brain to bits or drain you of your blood and understand just how a super soldier works.

That thought alone makes bile rise up your throat, but you can’t lose the fullness that lingers in your stomach. You’ll sit for a while, wait for the racket in your head to quiet, wait for the waves of tension to cease.

And then you’ll leave. You’ll leave DC without looking back, and leave Rogers, too. Get a headstart before he can even begin to start searching for you.

-

You fall asleep at the bus stop.

  
When you fall asleep, you dream again.

You know it’s not a memory, because you’ve only ever been in Rogers’ apartment once, and because somewhere, in the logical part of your brain, you know he’s still in the hospital.

But here you are standing in the living room, dark with the cover of night. The kitchen counter is a barrier between the two of you. Your left arm is missing, dripping blood steadily on the floor. You’re wearing clothes, but you feel naked.

“What are you hiding from, Buck?” Rogers asks. His face is healed, but he’s not dressed in civilian clothes from this year. They’re old and worn and beige and they’re not civilian clothes at all, it’s half a dress uniform. He’s disheveled, and has the same distress he had before, but it’s making you feel worse than before, making your guts twisting up with something like guilt.

You can’t answer him. Your lungs are turning to husks. Your jaw is locking up and it  _ hurts _ , makes you feel like your skull is going to crack, like your heart is beating out of your chest. Your blood is splattering against the tile,  _ dripdripdripdripdrip _ .

You try to say  _ I don’t know _ . You try to say  _ I’m sorry _ , but the words turn to dust on the tip of your tongue, and your eyes are prickling, getting too hot despite your breath and Rogers’ turning to vapor in the air. You’re shivering, but he isn’t moving a muscle.

In fact, he isn’t moving at all.

When you take a step forward, your foot sinks into shallow water that only gets deeper. The floor is dropping away. The river is rushing up to meet you and you don’t know whether you want to reach out for Rogers or if you want him to reach out for  _ you _ , to pull you from the water and stop you from drowning.

To stop you from—

Your eyes shoot open, body trembling and drained of its strength. You expect it to be morning, for the sun to burn your eyes, but it’s still dark. The rain has quieted to a mist, with no more thunder.

The wind has turned bitter and cold. You tug your jacket tighter around yourself, zip it to your throat. The streets are desolate, and there won’t be a bus until sunrise.

Once one arrives, you can get to work, but for now, you shut your eyes. If you can sleep now, even despite the grimy feeling sticking to your bones, you might have enough stamina to do exactly what your thoughts are drifting to.

You might need to fight your way out, after all.

-

By morning, a bus arrives, and it’s as close to your intended location as you can get. You’ll find your way from there.

It’s as wet as it was last night, a stark contrast to the blistering sun and heavy spring heat from the daytime. The city seems to be desaturated with it, and even the cherry blossoms look colorless, soggy with the constant drizzle beating down on them. The raindrops are getting heavier, hitting the roof of the bus constantly,  _ taptaptaptaptap _ . It would be soothing if you weren’t wound so tight, prepared to jump into action at any moment. Your arm hums faintly when you clench your fist.

From the window, you can see the wreckage of The Triskelion. The massive chunks of debris from the helicarriers still floating in the Potomac, leaving choppy waves in the murky water.

“Crazy stuff,” the man sat opposite you says, and shakes his head. “Blink of an eye, and everything goes haywire these days. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.”   
  
“Hm,” is all you can come up with. You can still feel the heat of a fire in your face, the beam falling on top of you, threatening to splinter every bone in your body, snap your spine in two, before Rogers pulled it off of you.

You remember being certain it was a trick, certain that he was going to kill you.

Death wanted you desperately that day. It tried to seize you in its claws as the helicarrier burned, and then again when you dove after Rogers, the dead weight of his body threatening to pull you back beneath the surface. You swallowed so much water, briny and acrid in your mouth, had to tread it like your life depended on it, and it did, but it wasn’t just your life hanging by a thread. 

You don’t think it’s ever just been you.

-

The bank is closed. 

It’s a Sunday, after all, but you’ve broken into plenty of high-security buildings in the past. The only difference between now and then is that you’re doing this for your own benefit. No one else’s.

Ducked in an alley between the bank and a condemned storefront— _ the storefront _ . It comes rushing back. You’re almost relieved to remember that that’s the place to go.

Your handlers were not stupid. Certainly not stupid enough to simply take you through the back of the bank. The vault is far below it, anyway. You know it takes an elevator, a key card, a keypad, and a connection to someone who works at the bank to get there if the passageway between the two buildings wasn’t used. You know this only because no one ever seemed to think that you were listening when they spoke, ignorantly assumed you’d fall somewhere in your head, dead to the world around you.

There’s so much you’ve overheard, so much that could take HYDRA down with a single word to the right person, but that’s not important now. You’re not planning on helping anyone’s cause, good or bad. You’re here to get yourself off the grid. That’s all you’re here to do.

You slip around the side of the store, toward the back, and find a flimsy wooden door. All it takes is a good shove with your shoulder, and it’s giving, falling with a thump and a cloud of dust.

It’s no lie that the building is condemned, but this one in particular was owned by Alexander Pierce, and has supposedly been under construction for the past two decades. Since he owned it, Pierce could essentially do anything he wanted with it, including leaving it bareboned, save for the entrance to the vault, thanks to knowing the owner of the bank.

Being friends with, or having the ability to blackmail just about everyone has its perks. You wonder how long connections like that last for a dead man.

-

You would know the interior of this building blind, but lucky for you, your vision is sharp and clear, even in the dark, even with the only source of light coming from the flickering fluorescent rods on the basement ceiling. Your fingers curl around a knob, and you open a door leading down a hallway, cleaner than the entire building. The floor is covered by dark carpet that hasn’t been trampled on in days.

You walk into the hall. The last time you did, you were dragged in by guards, subdued with a tranquilizer. Both your wrists pinch with the phantom ache of cuffs that aren’t there at all. It’s just a memory. You tell yourself this as you keep walking, the silence heavy and pressing down against your ears.

What you find in the vault is even more surprising than anything you expected. You expected what remained of STRIKE, or a rogue agent with a gun, one of Rogers’ friends, but—

Everything is empty. Hastily abandoned.

File drawers are pulled open. Papers are spilled across the floor. The monitors are gone. The desks are pushed out, and so are the chairs. The tray of medical supplies, of whatever the techs used to fix your arm, gone.

Maybe it’s just the insignificant few who scurried like rats from a sinking ship, because anyone of importance was inside the Triskelion when it collapsed, and is now buried under the rubble of it.

So, maybe not everything is missing.

-

It takes two hours, but you tear the room apart.

Most of the files are meaningless. There are countless logs, and most of them don’t even concern you. One contains a diagram of your arm, the inner workings of it. How to maintain it if it goes haywire or stops working completely. You might need that, so you stuff it into your bag. Everything else can remain where it is, but if you remember correctly...

You find the right key in the right hiding spot, and open the right drawer. You release a breath you didn’t realize you were holding.

Passports. So many of them. Your face, with different names, different countries of origin, different residences.  _ Henry Cook, June 30th, 1987. John Bouchard, November 11th, 1987. Nikita Yushkov, April 2nd, 1987. Adrian Gorski, February 24th, 1987. Constantin Lupescu, July 7th, 1987. Yakiv Dudnyk, March 13th, 1987. Laszlo Vastag, December 8th, 1986. _

There are social security cards and credit cards to match each passport, surely connected to dummy bank accounts. Some of them must have a bit of money in them, since you had to use them on the rare missions you’d gone undercover for. You take everything you find. Take the cash, too. Euros and dollars and some currencies you barely recognize.

According to all of the passports, you’re twenty-eight years old. 

Barnes was a month shy of twenty-eight when he plummeted into the Alps. 

It’s funny. It has the sharp, cruel sort of humor Pierce tended to favor. Dangling clues in front of your face while you struggled to put them together, and then punishing you once you did.

When you shut the barren drawer, your eyes lock on The Chair. 

It seems to suck all the light out of the room, and there’s not much to begin with, all dim and tinged with green, reflecting off the steel walls. 

It’s a big, hulking thing. Metal and wires and cuffs for the ankles and biceps and wrists. The helmet almost looks unassuming when it’s not live, when it’s not sending volts of electricity through your body.

It’s a big, hulking thing, but when it comes down to it, so are you, and it doesn’t take much effort to destroy it.

Your vision whites out in the midst of it all, and your body is numb even though you see the destruction unfolding before you in snatches. When you blink back to reality, The Chair is in pieces. Twisted metal and sparking wires that could set the entire bank alight. It just might. You hope it does.

Your heart is thundering in your chest. Your right hand is smeared with blood, with shallow cuts that smear blood onto your sleeve. Your pinky might be broken, but you’ll be able to set it soon enough.

As you think that, your eyes fall on something you didn’t notice at first.

It’s buried in the files littering the floor, but your eyes linger on it because it’s so much bigger. The paper is thick and white, clean and devoid of stains. It’s been printed recently. A month, give or take. It sticks out among the yellow and smeared, the blank covers.

You notice the false bottom to a drawer beside it. A tech tried to grab it, then. The file slipped from their incapable hands.

Whatever this is, it’s not in the data leak. HYDRA isn’t full of idiots. Anyone with a functioning brain knew to leave some things on paper, make sure they can be easily destroyed.

You run your flesh fingers over it, and as much as you don’t want to open it, you have to know what’s inside.

In the center, strangely, is nothing at all. You half-expected SHIELD or HYDRA insignia but there’s nothing but a title emblazoned in the bottom right corner,  _ PROJECT MOROS _ .

Your eyes scan over the pages as you flip them, finding nothing of importance; dates and signatures, updates throughout the last few months of 2013. It could be something that never came to fruition. An experiment, a social test preceding Insight that fell through.

You keep reading. You keep reading until you can find something important, something to use against them if you must.

_ 11/30/13 - Subject moves in. _

Your brows knit together.

_ 12/01/13 - Subject arrives Triskelion _

_ 12/02/13 - Subject goes for evening run, returns at midnight _

Something slick and cold is settling into your stomach. There are more logs as you flip through seemingly endless pages, talk of The Subject, whoever they are, as time goes on, but there’s no hint at who it might be. The logs are mundane and give nothing away. You wonder why you haven’t overheard any mention of Moros in the past.

Another page. The logs are catching up to the present. Your head swims, vaguely, as they do.

_ 03/10/14 - Subject leaves DC alone, takes a plane from DCA and lands at JFK. _

_ 03/12/14 - Subject returns to DC alone. _

You skip further.

_ 04/01/14 - New bug placed in Subject’s residence, waiting for intel. _

_ 04/02/14 - Possible security breach. Target neutralized by Asset in Subject’s residence. Subject pursues without success. _

_ 04/03/14 - Subject neutralizes, maims STRIKE in ambush and escapes detainment. _

_ 04/04/14 - Subject and [WITHHELD] tracked to NJ base. _

_ 04/05/14 - Subject returns to DC. Asset set to neutralize [WITHHELD] and detain Subject. _

_ 04/06/14 - Asset reconditioned and prepared to finish mission, followed with termination upon arrival to base. _

The logs end there, but there are other pages you haven’t read, as thick as a novel. You run your right index finger, still smeared with blood, along  _ termination _ .

It’s no wonder no one has bothered looking for you. They wanted you gone, planned to get rid of you with a bullet to the head, a lethal injection, dissolving your body in acid to make sure you were gone for good because HYDRA didn’t want  _ you _ , they wanted an  _ Asset _ , they wanted a new super soldier, and found one in the shape of Steve Rogers.

Maybe they still have a chance to get him. There’s always a straggler around, willing to finish the job.  _ Cut one head off and two more take its place _ , you think.

You hiss out a string of curses, and it feels incredibly human. Your anger feels human, too, burning a hole through your insides.

You tear through the drawers until you find a small duffle. It’s dusty with disuse, and was something you were occasionally sent with on missions that required deeper cover, required you to travel, but it’s been so long since then. You try to consider finding it a stroke of luck, and stuff everything you need inside. The passports, the cards, the money, and so on, and stuff the file in, too.

Friends or not, memories restored or not, HYDRA can’t get their hands on anyone else. They can’t subject them to what you were subjected to.

-

You’re getting sick of public transportation, but you suppose this, too, is part of being human. You’re not so worried about money when you have plenty of it for now.

What are you meant to do? Return to Rogers’ room? Hope one of his friends pass you in the hall and slip it to one of them? As if either of them would believe you. As if they’d listen at all.

You scrub a hand over your mouth. You don’t worry about looking too anxious. You’re in a taxi headed for a hospital. That alone is making the driver rush to get you there.

When you finally arrive, you all but toss the money at him, not waiting for change. You walk through the doors, and give the same receptionist your name, but she recognizes you and lets you through.

It only makes you more suspicious. It could be nothing, but the folder in your bag feels like a ticking bomb. In the elevator, you try not to stare anyone down. The doctor on your right makes you nervous, but you know this is something you’ve experienced before. You’re used to white coats and scalpels and the smell of antiseptic, the tear of your own skin or a joint popping back into place before the dark, sparking halo of The Chair descended over your head.

_ Focus _ , you tell yourself, and exit on Rogers’ floor.

-

It’s not as busy today, and it’s later in the afternoon. Visiting hours are ending in the evening, which means you don’t have as much time as you’d like.

The guards are at Rogers’ door again, and you wonder if you’ve missed your window to get in. You’re too wired to explain yourself to them if they ask any questions. They’re there to protect him.

_ Or maybe they aren’t. _

You try to reassure yourself with the thought that the people watching his back can’t be so foolish, but HYDRA’s been under their noses for the last seventy years and they never noticed a thing until now.   
  
Meaning, it’s you who has to do this.

Someone sits beside you, and you stifle your annoyance as their chair squeaks. The waiting room is all but empty, yet someone chose to sit next to you.

“Well,” a smooth, familiar voice says, just loud enough for you to hear. “Fancy meeting you here.”

You lift your head. The Widow. No, not just the Widow, not just Romanoff.

Romanova. 

_ Natalia _ .

The memory of her returns in stunning clarity. You see her at eleven and thirteen, twisting a knife between her fingers exactly the way you taught her and the others _ —God, the others _ —, firing a gun into a dummy at fourteen, garrotting a man at fifteen, snapping another’s neck in the same breath.

You see her through your scope at twenty-four. Odessa. So cold your bones ache, but the rest of the scene is incoherent. You don’t prod at it, because it’s not coming back to you. You have a feeling many memories will be like this.

You don’t know what to say, but now is not the time for lingering on the past. You turn your head back to the door, jaw clenched tight.

“I’m not here to hurt him,” you say, keep your hands clasped together. The guards haven’t moved. You think one catches your gaze for a moment. “That’s not what this is.”

“Oh, that’s reassuring,” Natalia says, deadpan. “I didn’t realize this was a social visit.”   
  
“I mean it,” you snarl, turning to face her once more. “I don’t need you to believe me. It’s him I’m here to see, because—”

You shut your mouth. It’s too quiet. You feel watched.

Are you being watched?

Your jaw clenches tight. Your flesh fingers grip the arm of the chair, and the wood creaks. “He’s not safe here.”

You say it as quietly as you can, and it gets Natalia’s attention, even if she doesn’t show it completely. You can see it in her eyes, the spark of curiosity, of caution. Once upon a time, you were trained for this.

“I hope you have a good reason for me to believe you,” Natalia says, cold. You both know how to blend in, whether you know it or not. To anyone passing by, your conversation looks incredibly mundane. “Because you don’t have much of a track record when it comes to trust.”

“Munich,” you blurt out, like you’ve had the answer prepared the entire time. It feels almost expelled from you, thrust to the front of your mind. These memories are fresher—a little over a decade ago compared to an entire life. “I know you remember Munich, too.”

Natalia’s face has slipped into a mask, but a muscle in her jaw pulses before it settles. “Yeah, I remember Munich,” she says. She still doesn’t trust you, not completely.

“Did—” As the memory slips in, you almost don’t want to know the answer. “Did they kill her?”   
  
“She made it out when the place fell apart, but that’s all I know,” Natalia says, and stands up. You don’t want to leave the waiting room. You don’t want to miss the guards changing shifts, but you can tell she wants you to follow her. “If you remember Munich, you remember her.”

You do remember Yelena.

You remember her stern little face. Her sharp reflexes, the same sharpness in her eyes that melted away when she caught a bullet to the side, when you fished it out of her while Natalia held her hand in a white-knuckled grip. She screamed when the bullet came out, echoing through the emptiness of the safehouse before she shut herself up with a fist stuffed between her teeth, choking back weak, reedy sounds.

You may have had more control over missions before the Americans got their hands on you and made you into an attack dog, but you were still, at your roots, an asset. A possession. This was still something forbidden. You were a trainer and a guard dog, not meant to find sentiment or pity for the children of the Red Room, but something had wormed into your bones, sparked into your memory. 

Memories of curly-haired little girls and tow-headed boys with skinned knees or your own grimy, mangled hands, body tightening up with discomfort while someone dabbed cuts and scrapes with gentian violet or picked splinters from palms, rinsing them with carbolic soap.

But Yelena didn’t have a scraped knee. She had a hole ripped into her side, and she was digging her nails into the wooden floor while you bandaged her. You weren’t processing why you knew how to do this at all, why you were so quick with sewing up bullet wounds and making it quick and clean despite no training.

On instinct, you pressed your flesh and blood hand on her sweaty forehead, fever-hot beneath your skin, and she stared at you like a trapped animal waiting to be killed, green eyes wide, even as you said  _ все кончено, все кончено, обещаю,  _ repeated it until she believed you. Until she stopped shaking.

She was fourteen. Natalia was sixteen. 

You weren’t supposed to save her. The Widows were meant to be weeded out. The point was to figure out who the strongest of them was, and you had meddled with it.

You remember blood, pain lighting up every joint, the bright glare of lights. You remember fighting back, being restrained, a needle of something plunged into your neck, but it didn’t work. The doctors were horrified. This must have been the first time you couldn’t be subdued.

Before they shoved the mouth guard between your teeth, before you were dragged to The Chair you hissed  _ она ребенок, они дети!  _ at Karpov, and then electric shocks sparked up your body and you screamed until your voice gave out, floating in blood and piss.

There was no Red Room after that. No Yelena, no Natalia. It was only the hollowness of the Siberian base once more, the hiss of the cryo tank, and then nothing at all.

It seems your memories may not be gone after all. Perhaps they’ve just been hiding. Perhaps the wipes only hold them off for so long, and that’s why they were done so often.

Your handlers were aware that the wipes didn’t hold, but so much time and effort had been put into molding you to their image, they refused to terminate you out of sheer stubbornness. You were a walking experiment to the Russians, pushed and pushed to see how far you could stretch under duress, but to the Americans you were a faulty piece of machinery, and they knew they could simply find an alternative, especially if one was staring them right in the face.

You don’t answer Natalia, but you do stand up to follow her. She must take it as a yes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're getting into some action now ;) let me know what you think!
> 
> она ребенок, они дети! = she is a child, they are children!


	4. Chapter 4

You’re in a fluorescent flooded cafeteria, staring at a flaccid slice of pizza with congealed cheese and wet pepperoni while Natalia stares at you.   
  
You need food in your stomach, but the thought of eating  _ this _ disgusts you. That’s a good thing, you suppose, disgust. It’s human. It’s so simple, not wanting to do something, but it’s not a luxury you’re familiar with. Deciding against something, even as small as this, feels like a victory.

The coffee is easier to stomach.  _ Caw-fee _ , you said when you asked for it, rather than coffee. It’s filled with vanilla flavored cream and sugar, and the sweetness of it keeps you sharp, warms you from the inside out. It tastes good. It tastes better than good, you realize, when you notice the faint bitterness in it. 

It tastes like a memory. 

The memory is simple. There’s snow sticking to the windows and you’re wearing a wool coat inside. You need to warm up somehow.  _ Pour the grounds into the pot, boil them and pour them into two mugs. Let the smell of it fill your nose, like the smell of exhaust from a truck on a street far below you, the buttery-nothing smell of scrambled eggs. _

Cooking. Did you know how to cook? Yes,  _ yes _ , you did. You knew because you had to know, because you were the first to be interested. Chopped onions and carrots and celery and garlic. Punched down dough before kneading it. Knew to boil vegetable tops and onions skins and chicken bones for stock. Knew how to make noodles and dumplings that weren’t ever tough. Knew how to make sure meat wasn’t overcooked, and learned how to cook until it was butter-soft, tender enough to cut through without the help of a knife.

There’s so many secrets your hands are keeping from you, so many secrets your mind is keeping from you, too, like the fact that you knew harmless things once. That maybe there were goals you had, places you longed to see, favorite smells and sounds and colors and tastes.

You didn’t think you could like or want anything until this moment, but now, you think you could drink cup after cup of coffee until you’re jittery with it and your heart stutters in your chest. 

But you don’t. Not now. Now, you stare at Natalia over the rim of your styrofoam cup. You’re both daring the other to speak first.

“Well, you’re obviously not here to play catch-up with me, so let’s get it over with.” Natalia says and crosses her arms. She’s dressed casually, hair pulled back into a ponytail that’s gone frizzy. There’s worry pinching between her brows. Maybe Rogers isn’t doing as well as everyone thought, and if that doesn’t raise an alarm. “Why isn’t he safe here?”   
  
“Is he alone up there?” you ask. You take another sip of your coffee and wish it was something stronger. Alcohol doesn’t affect you now, so it must be an older, deeper part of you that refused to budge. Another part of you the wipes couldn’t erase, that the serum couldn’t wash away.

Natalia shakes her head. “You don’t know him, but he’s good people,” she says. “Sam Wilson. We owe him a hell of a lot.”   
  
Someone is with Rogers. Someone he trusts, someone Natalia trusts. That gives you time.

You unzip your duffle enough to pull the file from inside, and slide it to Natalia. “I don’t know what else to do with this,” you say as she eyes you, pulling it closer to herself. “Read it, burn it, hell, whatever you have to, but I don’t think—” you flatten your mouth into a tight line. “I know he isn’t safe here.”   
  
That, finally, gets her attention. “So, it _was_ you,” she says. “You saved him.”   
  
You try not to acknowledge it, but the memory of Rogers keeps sharpening the more it resurfaces. You still don’t have every detail, but you don’t think you need to. Not now. You have enough to go off of. This is more than you could have asked for. More sureness, more understanding than you could have imagined.

You nod, just once. “And I need you to help me do it again,” you say.

-

It doesn’t take more than a bit of skimming for Natalia to figure things out. You’re allowing yourself to rely on instincts for now. If there are any ears open, you don’t want to take any risks.

“Keep it,” you say, and try not to let your voice give anything away, try to keep your posture loose and open despite wanting to remain wired, ready to strike.

“Shit,” Natalia says, and with that she’s getting up. “There has to be a way for us to—”   
  
“No,” you snap, and grab her wrist. She stares a hole through you, but you don’t let your gaze waver. “No, they’ll expect you. They won’t try anything until you leave.”

Natalia's brows knit together. “And you really think this plan is still go?” she asks.   
  
“Look where the logs end,” you tell her. “If they didn’t want to keep this up, that file wouldn’t have been in the vault. Why else would they send me after Rogers? They didn’t want him dead, Natalia, they wanted  _ him _ . Everything that happened that day, that wasn’t the way it was supposed to go.”

You whisper it all, and Natalia wrenches her wrist away from you. “He’s still laid up. He should have been out of here by now, so something ain’t right. Look, the only way this works is if you and Wilson aren’t here,” you continue. “If there’s anyone with the clearance to know my face, they’ll think I’m on their side. I can get him out. I can get him back to you.”

_ Ain’t _ . The affectation wouldn’t have felt familiar before, but it feels right on your tongue. The more you speak, the more you’re understanding  _ how _ you speak.

“You trusted me once,” you say.   
  
“I trusted you because I was a kid,” Natalia says.

“Just trust me for now and then you’ll never have to see me again if you do this.” You’re so close to begging now. You swallow hard, heart racing, and try not to think of things going wrong before you can fix them. “None of you will.”

It only makes sense. You can’t stay here for good. You’ll find a way out of the city, and hopefully, a way out of the country soon after. The more distance you put between yourself and any sort of trouble, the better.

“Just make an excuse to leave, then tell your friend what’s going on,” you mutter, and now you think you might actually be begging. “I’ll get—” you aren’t sure whether to say Rogers or Steve. You say neither, sink your teeth into the skin of your cheek. “I’ll get him out.”

Maybe Natalia doesn’t trust you, maybe it’s pity, or maybe she sees you’re telling the truth, but she shakes her head and pulls her phone from her pocket, types something out. “If you’re playing us,” she mutters without looking up. “I’ll kill you.”   
  
“I know,” you say. You believe her, and the truth of it is, if something goes wrong and she blames you, you’ll take it. You’d rather go out with your memories than without them.

Besides, if you get Rogers killed, if you accidentally hand him over to HYDRA, you won’t be able to live with it. You know that much.

Natalia’s phone pings, and she looks over at you, expression tight. “Sam’s on his way down. Guards change in ten minutes,” she says, jerks her head toward the elevators. “Make it worth your while.”

That’s all it takes for you to get up. You’re prepared. You’ll stay focused. You’ll find an easy way out. “Natalia—”

“Don’t thank me till this is over,” Natalia says, and then she’s walking away from you, presumably to meet Wilson.

Ten minutes. That’s all you have.   
  
If Moros is still on the brink of happening, you have no choice but to make this work.

-

Getting your hands on two sets of scrubs is surprisingly easy. You hide them in your duffle, all but bursting now with too many incriminating things. You’ll have to find another bag before you leave D.C., burn the files you stole, too.

Back on Rogers’ floor, it’s unnervingly quiet.

No nurses shuffling around, no patients, no doctors.   
  
No guards, which is only further confirming your suspicions.   
  
Are they waiting for someone to try taking him? Are they expecting you to do it?   
  
It doesn’t matter. You’ll be ready, no matter what the outcome is. If it’s nothing, you’ll know you tried to stop HYDRA in their tracks.

You open the door to Rogers’ room, and he’s awake, looking even weaker than he did yesterday and just as pale, circles under his eyes just as dark.

“Your friends know I’m here,” you say as you shut the door, and do your best not to look away from him. “I already talked to Natalia.”   
  
No response.

They’re drugging him. Something in his IV. Your thoughts turn to a room bathed in green, dim light, stinking of death, a word, a number, at the tip of your tongue, despite the drugs turning your brain to mush.

He wouldn’t need morphine now. He should at least be able to move. Be able to be anywhere that’s not a hospital.

“You should have been out of here by now,” you say. “You should have been out of here _tonight_ _.” _   
  
Again, silence in return.

Rogers watches you, half illuminated in the blue glow of the television on the wall. The blinds are shut, blocking out the overcast light outside. All of this feels strangely familiar, but there’s something wrong with the scene.   
  
It’s wrong because your roles should be reversed.

It should be Rogers in your position. It should be you strapped to a table, thoughts disjointed and frantic, it should be—

“Do you trust me?” you ask him, and you’re already moving closer. You don’t know what kind of drip he’s hooked up to, but you can tell it’s something strong. You can see it in the clamminess of his skin, the way he’s having trouble focusing on you with his half-lidded eyes.

Rogers shakes his head. He squeezes his eyes shut for only a moment, but it feels like a lifetime. His voice is slow and weak when he says, “Bucky, what are you—”

“Do you,” you start, and come as close as you dare, close enough to see him clearer, to see the bruise that’s already turned mottled yellow, the only thing healing the way it should be. You wonder if he can hear the way your voice wavers. “ _Trust_ _me_?”

It seems to become clear to Rogers that you’re actually here, because there’s a sudden spark of focus in his expression. You know this feeling all too well, but you’ve never seen it in anyone else. You wonder if the flash of reversed roles means more than you thought, wonder if you’ve felt exactly like this.

“Yeah,” Rogers says quietly, and he meets your eyes in the dark. “Yeah, you know I do.”

You don’t know that. 

What you know is that Rogers is drugged and sees you as the friend he lost in a war three years and seven decades ago. You’re gripping the bed rail hard, searching his face for an answer you aren’t sure he has.

But the confirmation is all you have to go off of. Drugged or not, he sees past the mold you were forced into. He sees something in you that’s worth salvaging, even if you can’t make sense of the past you’ve forgotten.

Maybe you can prove that to him, and yourself, by doing this.

You swallow down any remaining apprehension and say, “Then you have to follow my lead.”

-

The first thing you do is take the drip out.

The bag is clear, no labels, and it lights a fire somewhere in your chest because you’ve been hooked up to enough to know that this is something like the cocktail you were given, one that kept you from fighting back, turned your limbs to lead. You were kept on it until your handlers thought it ‘safe’ to take you off, meaning your body had to work harder to flush the drug out. The longer you were hooked up, the longer it would take to fade, the longer you were compliant.

You hope Rogers is exempt from that.

You let the cannula clatter to the floor and pull the bedcovers back. “I’ll explain everything,” you’re muttering, easing him upward. You have no weapons, no fallback plan, no idea of where you’ll go after this is finished. You’ve never gone into a mission blind before. It makes you feel spread thin, like something is bound to go wrong. “Once you’re out, I’ll explain it.”   
  
“Hey,” Rogers says, surprisingly clear, even though his movements are sluggish. His hand is warm when it comes to your shoulder. “Whatever it is, I told you I trust you.”

He doesn’t have a choice but to trust you. You remind yourself of that.

You’re torn between letting his touch linger and shrugging him off. You don’t have much time to do either. All you can do now is keep moving.

“Put these on,” you say instead, and hand him a pair of scrubs. You leave him to do it as you bring a wheelchair from the corner closer, hooking your bag onto the handle. “I’ll help you if you can’t.”

“I can do it,” Rogers argues— _ even now _ ? some ancient part of you thinks—, and you watch him pull himself up sluggishly, avert your eyes when he shrugs out of the hospital gown, stomach flushing with a chill when you catch a glimpse of his bandages, thick and white against his skin, sticky with adhesive and dried blood. You taste bile in the back of your throat and you force it back down.

You strip quickly, make quick work of putting the other pair of scrubs on, stuffing your clothes into your bag.

“What’s that for?” Rogers asks, and you find he’s in the scrubs now. They’re dark against his skin, a deep red that almost looks black, identical to your own.   
  
“They’re not letting just anyone take you out of here,” you say, slip the shirt over your head. You run a hand through your hair, try not to think about the fact that Rogers can see you as you change.

Can he see the bruises, the outline of your ribs, sticking out like a junkyard dog’s? The pearly, barely there surgical scars reflecting in the faint light?

It’s intimate in a way you can’t quite fathom, like your skin is being peeled back and your insides, your bones, are on display for him to see.

You don’t think this is the first time you’ve felt this. You don’t think this is the first time you’ve felt this in front of him, either.

“Did you know you were being drugged?” you ask, and the look on his face is enough of an answer.   
  
Rogers says nothing as he slides into the wheelchair, sitting too heavily. The drugs are still weighing him down, won’t stop weighing him down for hours, surely.

Pulling a surgical mask over your face feels as confining, as invasive as the mask your handlers forced you to wear. You can almost taste the metallic, blood-like scent that came with it. The sour stench of death that always found its way inside.

You maneuver the chair toward the door and kick it open without even glancing at the guards, who’ve taken their place again. Silence follows, and that only makes your suspicion stronger than before.

“I don’t know where Wilson and Natalia are,” you mutter, white knuckling the handles as you head for the elevators. The halls are too empty. There’s none of the familiar chaos of a hospital. “But in case they didn’t—”

“You know, you did a real good job with getting off the grid.” The voice is low, unfamiliar. “Everyone thought you went down with the ship, bud.”

“Don’t move.” You say it so softly that whoever’s behind you won’t catch it, but Rogers will hear it just fine.

You turn around to face him, and as you expected, it’s one of the guards. His rifle is aimed between your eyes.

This isn’t an uncommon occurrence. Any guard knew to be wary in your presence.

In the rush to leave, you didn’t disguise your arm, and you notice your hand gleams dully in the light.

You don’t speak, just keep your gaze steady. That’s what’s expected of you. Response to commands, but no feedback. No speaking unless you're being spoken to.   
  
“Look, I don’t know where you’re getting your orders now,” the guard says coolly. He’s young, but capable. Has the look of someone with good reflexes. “But Cap’s supposed to stay put.”   
  
Your eyes drop to the handgun in his holster. If you move fast enough, you can get your hands on it. You’re half-aware of Rogers behind you, stock still, following your lead. 

If he moves a muscle, you’ll both end up dead.

Or worse, HYDRA gets exactly what they want.

“Do what you’re told,” the guard says, and jerks his head back toward the way you came. “Take him back to his room.”   
  
“I have orders to take him to Richmond,” you say, keep your tone steady. Unwavering. It’s muffled behind the mask, but anyone with the authority the guard is speaking with doesn’t want your response to be firm. You’re not the one in charge, not to them.

“Orders from who?” the guard asks. He takes a step closer. You can’t be sure if he notices something’s amiss, or if he doesn’t want to be around you without a weapon in his hand. “Spit it out.”

You can get your hand on the gun. You know you can, but you have to be aware of your surroundings. You have your own mission now, and it’s evading capture, it’s stopping Project Moros before it has a chance to flourish.

Two targets, both armed, on an empty floor. You’ve done riskier things, and this doesn’t even compare to that list.

A face, a name, pop into your head. “Donnelly,” you answer with a surety you didn’t realize you had.

“Hey, Mac,” the guard says. “Donnelly mention that to you?”

Mac snorts from behind him. “If anyone’s got clearance to talk to Donnelly directly, I’m pretty sure it’s this guy,” he says, and looks through you rather than at you. “If he reported to Pierce, he reports to Donnelly, too.”   


The guard turns back to you, unconvinced. 

Again, you eye the handgun. You eye the guard’s name tag embroidered on his uniform, Sitko.

You raise your hands slowly, slump your shoulders into something that hopefully shows subordinance. “I have  _ orders _ ,” you insist. “To take Rogers to Richmond.”   


Sitko barks a laugh that makes your blood curdle with anger.

You’re reminded of someone with the same demeanor. A greasy, sharp smirk, a stun baton you knew all too well. A voice saying  _ hey, come on, we’re just fucking around, right?  _ then scoffing to someone else. _B_ __rain's_ so fried he doesn’t know what a goddamn joke is. _

“I’m gonna say it one more time.” Sitko takes a step forward, all humor drained from his face. “Take Rogers back to his room. That’s an order. While you're at it, I’ll call Donnelly myself and see if you’re telling the truth.”   
  
“Jace,” Mac calls. “How do you know he’s not telling the truth?”   
  
“Look at his fucking eyes,” Sitko says without looking away from you. “He’s got his hands on the wheel. You ever see this guy looking like he has the lights on upstairs? Find a way to get in touch with Donnelly, ASAP.”   
  
Sitko makes the mistake of looking away.

It’s only for a moment, but that’s all it takes for you to act.

You grab the gun from his holster before he has time to react, shutting off the safety and firing a bullet between his eyes. Sitko makes a thick, garbled sound before drops like a sack of flour, blood dark and sticky like syrup.

Mac raises his own rifle, but you can see fear in his eyes. You can use that to your advantage. Fear makes the brain faulty.

You know the armor they’re wearing. Know where the weak spots are, so you shoot Mac in the thigh, as close to the femoral artery as you can get, and it sends him down, but he still grips the gun, even when you stalk forward.

He’s speaking into an earpiece, voice trembling, saying, “I need ba—“

Another bullet between the eyes, and he says nothing more. You rip the earpiece out of his ear, crush it under your boot with a satisfying  _ crack _ .

This is not the first time you’ve killed against orders. You have a feeling it won’t be the last.

“We have to go,” you say, stick the gun into your waistband before you turn back to Rogers, make your way over to him. “Can you walk?”

“I think so,” Rogers says, words laced with a groan. His wounds are smarting, pulling with every movement. “I’ll be fine. It’s wearing off.”

He pushes himself out of the wheelchair on legs that wobble slightly before they settle, his feet are bare and pale against the linoleum, inches away from the growing pool of blood, spilling from Sitko’s head.

You say nothing, throat dry, adrenaline buzzing in your veins.

“Now what?” Rogers asks. 

-

Rogers’ legs are still weak enough to leave him stumbling, unsteady on his feet, and you have no choice but to pull his arm around your shoulders, put your arm around his waist as you try to find an exit, a stairwell, anything that can get you off this floor and out of the hospital.

“There’s gotta be more of them,” Rogers says, voice laced with pain. “On the other floors.”   
  
“Everyone else should be fine,” you tell him, not as reassurance. It’s a fact. “They’re only here for you, and anyone who tries to stop them from getting to you.”   


“Looks like we’re on our own for now, then,” Rogers says, fingers twitching against your shoulder, pinched into the fabric. His hand is cold, and you aren’t sure if the rest of him feels the same way. It’s your left hand secured at his hip, anyway. “No way to get in touch with Sam and Nat.”

“They’ll find us or we’ll find them,” you say, and find a door leading to a stairwell with a rush of something akin to relief.

When you shove the door open, everything stops.

It’s all stark white. The walls, the floor, the railings, the doors. The lights are too bright, and you remember a stairwell, a hallway just like this one. You remember your own bloody footprints, remember your jaw cracking against the floor as you were dragged backward. 

You remember a needle in your neck and your limbs turning floppy before you were locked in a musty little room, only one hand cuffed above your head, since your left arm was missing, a bloody, infected stump wrapped in gauze, and you screamed yourself hoarse, for help, for—

“...at me!” Rogers is yelling, and he’s shaking you. Your entire body feels hollow and cold, covered in sweat.

“I’m,” you start breathlessly and you’re supposed to be getting him out, you’re supposed to be saving him, but you’re unraveling at the seams. “I’m sorry. I’m—I didn’t—”   
  
You’re pressed between Rogers and the wall, his breath fanning over your face.

“Jesus, no, don’t apologize,” Rogers says, and when your eyes focus on him, his face is twisted with worry, eyes wild with it, the haze around them slipping away by the second. He squeezes your right bicep hard, in an attempt to steady you. You flinch when his hand lingers at your cheek, and something taints his expression, like anger, but you aren’t sure who it’s directed at. “Don’t. You’re fine. You know where you are?”   
  
A part of you know it isn’t patronizing, but it makes you shove him off anyway. “We have to keep going,” you growl. “Longer we stay, the better chances they have of finding you.”

You try not to think about how long you might have sat like that. Rogers has gotten some of his strength back and your body feels as weak as his must have, like he seeped the drive to move forward from your body.

Two stairwells down, he breaks the silence, speaking just loud enough for you to hear him.

“What’s your plan?” he asks, walking beside you now, meaning his body recovers even faster than yours. His concerned eyes swiveling all over you.

You pull the gun from your waistband, hold it for stability, ready to shoot if you have to. “What are you trying to do?” you ask, glance at him from the corner of your eye. “See if my head’s screwed on straight?”   


“I just wanna know what we’re walking into,” Rogers answers.

He wants it to be firm, you can tell, but it isn’t. It barely echoes in the stairwell, carries a different sort of weight that seems to surprise even him.

“We’re making it up as we go,” you say, push your hair out of your eyes as you come to a door, shoving it open and feeling a rush of warm air, seeing the glimpse of a garage. The unease, the pins and needles sensation weakening your fingers, evaporates at the sight of the dingy grey, the dull colors of a few cars. “Come on.”   
  
You have your duffle slung over one shoulder, your gun in your hand, but you feel like you’re missing something. The air doesn’t taste right, it doesn’t—

A body, appearing from nowhere, appears and tries to come at you, presumably to get to Rogers. The man is your height, built thicker than you are, but you’ve fought worse. Killed worse.

You disarm him when he flicks a knife from a holster, manage to jam the blade into his shoulder and he doesn’t even flinch. He’s been stabbed before, had injuries worse than this. You kick high, the steel toe of your boot connecting with his chin, and then he’s falling backward. Incapacitated, but not dead.

“Don’t move,” you say to Rogers, and walk away before he can say anything, scanning the garage for the hint of another goon. There can’t be many, since they were planning on a slow, calculated extraction. They didn’t need brute force, they needed stealth.

But your brain is fuzzy with lingering panic, with adrenaline, and you only notice the figure running at you when it’s too late, only when you’re knocked to the ground, breath rushing from your lungs.

The concrete is warm and rough against your back, scraping your skin through your shirt, tearing a hole through it. You grab blindly for your gun, but the assailant, an unmemorable, doughy white face wearing black tactical gear, knocks it from your hand. You watch it clatter to the ground, slide across the ground.

You reach your hands up, pressing your thumbs against the assailant’s eye sockets. He growls like an animal, hisses something you can’t make out. His fist knocks hard into your jaw with surprising strength, leaves your mouth filling with blood. He reaches into a pocket you can’t see, grabbing for a weapon you can’t see. You keep pressing and he whines, still digging, relentless, as volatile as you feel.   
  
Then he sticks something on your arm, and it sends a shockwave through your shoulder, and into your entire body.

Distantly, you hear a shout and a gunshot, the thump of a body and through the haze of pain, the familiar, mind-numbing sensation, and all you can think is _i_ _ _t’s_ over, it’s over, you failed. _You failed the mission, failed Rogers, failed to tie up the loose ends.

There are other voices, and then the shocks stop as quickly as they start. You stop choking on your own tongue and your breath is a sob when you inhale, when a pair of arms tug you upward. The grip is firm, but frenzied, rushing to get a hold of your sagging body. Your vision is blurred beyond recognition. You taste blood in your mouth, feel it splattered on your face, and then you’re being dragged forward.

You can’t look back. You can’t move. Your body betrays you and refuses to cooperate, filling your fleeting vision with brown spots.

-

You come to in a moving vehicle, propped up to sit, chin falling down against your chest.

The rush of wind outside sounds like moaning. Your eyes flip open and you shoot up like another gunshot has rung through your ears, but you’re restrained, held down by something and you can’t breathe, you can’t think straight, can’t rid yourself of the aftershocks of the weapon and—

“Woah, woah,” someone says in some failed attempt to soothe you. A hand presses to the center of your chest and you swat it away, unable to see in front of you. “It’s alright, you’re safe. You’re okay, I promise."   


When your eyes focus, you notice Rogers sitting beside you, hands open and visible to you, eyes wide with concern.

You notice you’re on a highway, that your shirt is sticky with blood that blends into the dark red of it. You notice that you’re in a car, not an armored truck. There are no guards. No restraints. No slack limbs from being drugged.

Natalia is driving the car, a cramped four-door, surely stolen. Wilson is in the passenger seat. He looks cramped. Rogers looks cramped. You feel cramped, packed into the seat.

Rogers’ hand moves and you’re about to snap, say something biting, but he simply clicks the button for the seatbelt holding you back. It loosens, slides back to its original spot.

No one says a word. Natalia keeps her eyes on the road, Wilson watches you through the rearview mirror.

You swallow around your thick throat, dry and inflamed. Like you were screaming. Maybe you were. “What is this?” you ask, voice rasping and weak. “Where are we?”

“West Virginia,” Natalia says calmly, like you’ve been awake the entire time. “Lucky us. I doubt Sam and Steve wanted to drag you around anymore.”   
  
Wilson and Rogers seem less than amused, faces grave and tight. Natalia’s is too, but she’s better at hiding it than they are. They can’t pick up on it, but you can see it etched tight in her expression.

“Pull over,” you say. “Now.”

Your tone isn’t as direct, as firm as you want it to be. It sounds more like begging.

“Not gonna happen,” Natalia says without turning around.

“Я сказал, что помогу ему сбежать, а не присоединиться к вашей команде,” you snarl.

“Вы были ранены, и он не ушел бы без вас,” Natalia argues.

You don’t answer, grinding your teeth together. You keep your gaze focused on your mismatched hand. Your left arm feels heavy at your side. Not dead, but still malfunctioning. Faintly, you recall this happening before, a Widow’s Bite dulling your reflexes.

Wilson catches your eye in the rearview mirror after a while. “Listen, man, you know more about what’s in that file than we do and you know more about what HYDRA’s up to than we do,” he says, as tense, as purposely neutral as Natalia. You have a feeling there’s going to be a lot of talk like this. “You tell us what you know, we’ll figure out the deal with your arm. You scratch our back, we’ll scratch yours.”   


You grimace.

“It means—” Rogers begins.

“I know what it means,” you say, jaw clenched. You try to move the fingers of your left hand and find they’re stiff, uncooperative. You resist the urge to clench it into a fist, shutting your eyes. “I’m not stupid.”   
  
Which was unfortunate for HYDRA. They wanted a perfect soldier, and knew a perfect soldier would be a living, breathing weapon. A gun with a gun. That was the reason you were constantly wiped, constantly forced into a blank slate. Your brain healed too fast, brought your senses to the surface before they could try to convince you of anything different.

It was easy to realize such a fact when your brain wasn’t clouded with drugs, with the haze cryo, or the Chair left around you.

-

The car falls silent. You don’t sleep, but you slip into a state of unawareness without trying to. It could be the fault of exhaustion or hunger, or the crash of adrenaline, or it could be something deeper, like your mind refusing to process what’s happening; still tuned to an extraction point, to going back to base, even now.

But that isn’t you. You know this is what you were conditioned to believe, what you were conditioned to be, but strip that away, and what’s left? What’s left, save for a body and a beating heart?

You don’t dare look at Rogers. You don’t want him to be the answer.

-

As Natalia drives, the woods grow thicker. The trees become more condensed, blocking out the dying sunlight. You shut your eyes when a stripe of it filters through the leaves, blinding you.

“I should have noticed something was off,” Rogers says, but he’s not talking to you. He must think you’re asleep. You don’t have to look to know his body is angled away from you, but you aren’t sure if it’s for your sake or his own. “At the hospital. I should have...God, I don’t know.”

“Steve,” Wilson warns. “Don’t. It’s not gonna get us anywhere.”

“You could have been killed, both of you,” Rogers argues. “After everything we did, they—”   
  
“There’s always gonna be a few stragglers,” Natalia says, firm. “Always. But right now, it’s just a matter of figuring out who wants us dead now rather than later.”

“Barnes might have some intel,” Wilson says, and your gut clenches hard at the name on his lips. “If he gave us the file, why wouldn’t he give up anything else? Bases, names of anyone at the top of the food chain?”

“Depends on his attitude when we talk to him,” Natalia says. “It can go either way. If he’s playing us, we handle it. If he’s not, we handle it.”   
  
“He already told you it wasn’t him they wanted,” Wilson says. “He wouldn’t have handed that file over for no reason, which, by the way—” you hear the wobble of paper, feel Rogers shift forward to grab something. The file. “Anyway, maybe he thinks this is an olive branch. He gives us information, we keep him off the grid.”

Is that what you want at all? Are you willing to hand yourself over if you’re offered protection?   


Natalia exhales, slow and measured. “You two have a lot more faith in him than I do,” she says. “But, assuming you’re right, I’ll stand by what I said. We’ll handle it.”   
  
_ Smart _ , you think. You wouldn’t trust you either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Я сказал, что помогу ему сбежать, а не присоединиться к вашей команде. = I said I would help him escape, not join your team.
> 
> Вы были ранены, и он не ушел бы без вас. = You were hurt and he wouldn't have left without you.


	5. Chapter 5

You flip your eyes open when the car eventually slows down, when the road turns to dirt and crackles beneath the wheels as it moves up a driveway. You see a small cabin, worn with age and surrounded by trees, in the midst of it.

When you roll your neck on your shoulders, it cracks, and you notice the stiffness there now, feel it in your entire body. You watch Wilson unclicking his seatbelt, watch Natalia parking the car and shutting it off.

Rogers still has the file in his lap, expression tight and unreadable.   
  
You get out of the car when the doors unlock, finding it’s much cooler now, and will surely get cooler as the sun sets. The air tastes crisp and clean on your tongue, and if you were alone, you think you would have closed your eyes, tried to soak it in, just because you never would have been able to before.

Instead, you listen to three doors opening and closing, three pairs of footsteps on the ground. Two headed for the cabin, one headed for you.

“You look better,” you say, indifferent, and take notice of Rogers’ tense but painless posture. “You’re healing.”   
  
“Feels like it,” Rogers says, and meets your eyes. “Guess I gotta check when we’re inside.”

He reaches out, and you almost step away, but he’s only handing you your duffle, holding it out like a peace offering.  _ An olive branch _ , you think.

“I grabbed it when—” Rogers stalls, the words stuck somewhere in his throat. “You dropped it when things went sideways.”

  
You take it with your right hand, left limp at your side, and struggle to look away from him. “Thank you,” you force out.

You aren’t sure if it’s the light streaming through the windows catching Rogers’ eyes, or if he’s looking at you with the same fervor as the sun, bright and golden and almost overwhelming.

“Yeah,” Rogers says, earnest. His gaze is warm and clear, meaning whatever remained of the sedative has long since been fought off, burned away by the serum. “Yeah, of course.”

You say nothing. It gives him the opportunity to jerk his head toward the house. “You probably want to change your clothes,” he says. “So, I won’t keep you too long.”   
  
It’s not an order. He doesn’t tell you to change your clothes or go inside. No, he’s wondering what you want. When has anyone ever cared what you wanted?

Once again, you can’t find the right words. You just set your jaw, nodding once before you walk past him to climb the stairs leading to the door, which has been left ajar. You’re aware of Rogers following you inside, slipping through the door a moment after you do, but you don’t linger beside him.

You make a beeline for the hallway, just past the small living room, and find a bathroom. Immediately, you duck inside and lock the door with a faint click.

-

You swallow down a breath. Then another, and another, and another, each more frantic than the last, heart pounding wildly in your chest.

Shutting your eyes, you try to get a hold of yourself. Try to remember where you are. There’s no immediate threat, not really, and you did what you were supposed to. Even if it got messy at the end, you threw a wrench in HYDRA’s plans.

A small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

The only question now is where you’ll go next.

Natalia won’t let you go so easily. She’ll want to scope you out even more now. Wilson, too, and Rogers…

You aren’t sure what to make of him. You aren’t sure what he makes of  _ you. _

Will he want answers, too? You know he’ll trap you in a conversation about your own morals. He’ll try to tell you the fact that you saved his life twice in less than a week means something. He’lll say it means there’s something in you that’s worth saving.

You don’t think you’re worth saving, but you do think you might be capable of more than killing.

-

You strip out of the scrubs, tacky with blood and sweat. You take your boots off and replace them once you pull your jeans back on your hips. You slip the stolen t-shirt over your head, leaving the jacket hidden for now.

The passports are still in the bag, and so is the file you grabbed. Curiously, you test your arm again. It’s working better now. Still slow, but not dead. It just might be fine by the end of the night. It’s been through worse, and still managed to work without much repair.

But still, you’d rather have full function. It isn’t just an arm, it’s a weapon, too. You can’t be without defenses. You feel naked as it is.

Someone knocks at the door.

“I’m fine,” you say without raising your voice. “Go away.”   
  
A heavy silence follows, but then the footsteps are moving away. Too heavy to be Natalia, too deliberate to be Wilson. Rogers wants you to be perfectly aware of his presence.

You sit on the floor with your back to the wall, and you don’t move for a very long time.

-

The file is longer than you expect it to be, and it only frustrates you.

You aren’t sure if you have the tools necessary for repairs, especially not this far away from town. You can tell the area is secluded, given how hidden in the trees it is. It’s a good spot for a safe house. You wonder who it belongs to.

You hide the file away for now, remind yourself to look at it later, and you’re about to leave the bathroom when you’re struck with a cold, sinking feeling.

The file is an instruction manual. One of many.

How many other manuals are there? How many techs and interns and doctors looked at them, seeing you as nothing but a piece of faulty machinery?

Anger isn’t something you expected, but you feel it now, hot and insistent, rising up from your stomach and wanting to spew from your mouth, or maybe from your fingertips. You destroyed the vault, destroyed The Chair, but it’s not  _ enough _ . It’s not—

“Hey, assuming you’re alive in there,” Wilson says, muffled through the door. “I’m gonna have to ask you to come out.”

You chew on the inside of your cheek, clasping your hands together before you shove past your apprehension, and unlock the door.   
  
Wilson is the only one here that has barely any history with you. Maybe you can work with him easier. Feel less scoped out.

He’s still standing there when you step out into the hallway, looking only the slightest bit roughed up, but otherwise, he appears to be unaffected. “Steve and Nat are upstairs,” he says. “Just you and me right now, so try not to pull anything. Kind of at the end of my rope today.”   
  
You hum, wondering where they could have gone. “Noted,” you say, and walk back toward the living room. 

The curtains are drawn, the lamps turned on and drenching the room in a warm glow, a relieving contrast compared to all the cold brightness of the hospital, the bright white of the stairwell, the desolate grey of the parking lot.

Wilson is a few feet away from you, his gaze not exactly scrutinizing, but definitely engaged.

You lean against the back of an armchair. “You want to talk,” you say.   
  
Wilson shrugs, arms crossed. “Now’s a better time than any,” he confirms. “Where’d you find that file?”   
  
“The vault where they kept me,” you answer. “On the floor. I was there looking for supplies.”

“What kind of supplies?” Wilson asks.   
  
“Look in the bag,” you say. “I don’t have any weapons.”

This isn’t unfamiliar to you, being asked questions and prompted to answer with only the truth. This is something you’re used to, but you feel strange. Your left hand twitches, expecting the pressure of a cuff around the wrist. Your neck prickles at the feeling of a gun that isn’t there, pointing directly at you.

Wilson looks in the bag, opens a passport, then another, then opens the manual on your arm before he zips the duffle up, leaves it between the two of you.   
  
He arches a brow at you. “So, you just happened to find a top-secret file with information like that laying on the floor,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t know if I believe that.”   
  
“Someone was there before I was,” you continue. “Gathering the intel they could. The computers were missing, most of the other files were, but this—” your mouth flattens into a tight line. “It was in the false bottom of a drawer. It got left behind in the chaos. Not every HYDRA agent is a tactical genius. Half of them are techs, grunts, interns, you know the type.”

“Okay, fine,” Wilson says. “How did you know Steve wasn’t safe at Sibley?”   
  
Your mouth is suddenly dry, and something must shift in your expression, because Wilson watches you a little closer, with a little less wariness.

“I didn’t,” you tell him, half-aware of your right hand clenched in the cloth upholstery of the couch, thumb nail rasping over the seam of it. “Not until I read the file.”   
  
Suddenly, he looks about as guarded as you feel. “Yeah,” he says. “I read it on the way here.”

“Then you don’t need me to tell you what it says.” You’re looking at the floor now, at his feet planted firmly against the carpet, but force yourself to look into his eyes. “You already know what they wanted to do to him.”   
  
For a moment, Wilson says nothing. He doesn’t look away, and neither do you.

“I don’t…” You swallow thickly. “I know he’s not lying to me, about who I am. Maybe that’s why I pulled him from the river, I don’t know, but I do know why I got him out of that goddamn hospital and it’s because I didn’t want anyone else in my place doing HYDRA’s dirty work, especially him because they would have  _ destroyed _ him, Wilson. They would have ripped him to shreds, and they would have  _ loved _ it.”

You’re breathing hard by the end of it, heart pounding all over again. You know every word you said is true. You know it would have been worse. You know they would have worked harder to break him. Would have worked harder to make sure he was theirs permanently.

That must have always been the plan, once Rogers was off the ice. Or maybe even before. It would have been so easy for HYDRA to slip through the cracks like they tried to do now, to pronounce him dead and steal him away.

They almost had a chance, and you didn’t allow them to take it.

“I’ll give you all the intel I can,” you say with as much conviction as you can muster. “But I’m not doing this for SHIELD, and I’m not doing it to gain anyone’s favor.”

  
Wilson looks like he believes you, posture easing up ever so slightly, but he still asks, “Then why are you doing it?”   
  
The question still takes you by surprise, but a long-buried part of you resurfaces to say, “Because I want them gone, too.”

There’s the faint sound of someone pacing above you, and you both look up before you look back at each other. “Alright, listen,” Wilson begins, strides over to a dusty bookshelf. The spines of the books are faded, bleached with sunlight, like they’ve been sitting here for years. Maybe they have. Wilson finds a ruled notebook, grabs a pen from a cup of them on a lower shelf. “Take this. Wrack your brain, write down what you remember. Names, locations, whatever comes to mind. That’s one way to get started on wiping HYDRA off the map.”   
  
You take both when he hands them to you. “Are you trying to keep me busy?” you ask.   
  
“Was it obvious?” Wilson shoots back without any malice.   
  
The slightest snap in tension. Right now, you think you’d rather talk to him than Rogers or Natalia.

“Don’t expect this to be done tonight,” you say, and eye the breakfast nook near the kitchen. It looks like a good spot to sit. It gives you a mostly unobstructed view of the kitchen and the living room.

Wilson makes a noncommittal sound. “Not like we’re going anywhere anytime soon,” he says.   
  
With that, he’s going upstairs. You notice him watching you from the corner of his eye before he knocks on the door, soon creaking and shutting when he’s let inside.

You should leave. 

There’s decent cover in the trees, and you won’t have a problem finding your way around. You have money, you have identification, you know how to hide in plain sight.

Despite this fact, you stay exactly where you are. You try to remind yourself to think, to not make snap decisions based on old habits. If HYDRA still wants Rogers, if someone gets wind that you’re not dead, you can’t leave. Unless you want to lead an agent directly to you or to him, you can’t leave.

The realization makes your stomach twist up with a sensation you can’t make sense of, fear or anger or confusion or some combination of both, and it’s strong enough to make you want to get rid of it, to focus on the only task you have at hand. You need a task to focus. Something to keep your thoughts clear, stop them from growing disjointed.

So, you sit down and open the notebook.

-

Your left hand is still not working well enough, but you can write with your right hand, too. You see a flash of something snapping hard against your knuckles, white-hot pain gathering there and festering into anger that burnt a hole through your chest.   
  
In the memory, both hands are flesh. In the memory, they are the hands of a child.

And now you can recall continuing to use your left hand when you weren’t at school, only switching when you had to. Your own little secret. It was better to do as you were told, because whoever knew you, really knew, didn’t like you much when they looked closer. Looked past your clear voice and light eyes, and saw the faint olive tone to your skin, the way your tongue didn’t curl perfectly around English sometimes.

Your mind offers you no more answers than that, but you write the memory down. There are enough pages, and you noticed an extra notebook on the shelf, anyway.

You write it down and stop when you can’t remember anything else, when a headache sharpens between your eyes. You tear the page out carefully, folding it and sliding into your pocket before you go back to what Wilson told you to do, trying to remember the closest base, the names of higher-ups. Whether it was in the leak or not, you’ll write it down.   
  
Gaining trust feels like the right thing to do. If you gain their trust, it’s another step closer to freeing yourself from HYDRA.

-

You try not to listen to the muffled conversation coming from upstairs. You can make out each voice, but somehow, you don’t want to know what they’re saying. You’ve had enough of people talking about you like you aren’t there, had enough of it done in earshot, too.

Absorbing yourself in this is easier, almost mindless because the locations and names are coming back quicker than you expected, possibly one of the few things your handlers allowed you to remember. There is, in fact, a base in Richmond, and an Edwin Donnelly—mid-sixties, grating voice, dyed black hair—in charge of it. He’s probably attempted to run since the data leak, but he was never known for his stealth. He’s foolish, but wealthy. Easy to control and with a dark enough history that HYDRA could use them to their advantage.   
  
There aren’t many people who would be able to take over as leader now, since it seemed that Pierce was going to wait to find a replacement for as long as possible, thinking he had it all under control until Rogers blew it up in his face. Without someone calling the shots, everyone else will scramble. Without order, they’ll only descend into chaos, which makes them all the easier to destabilize for good.

That’s a surreal thought, but certainly not a bad one. You just didn’t think you were capable of it. You almost expected your mind and body to betray you and go running back, searching for direction, but they never did have such a strong grip on you. Not unless they had the means to subdue you.

The pen digs into the thin note paper as you write, handwriting steady and bold and blocky. It didn’t look like that before. Now, you think you had excellent handwriting once, could write in sharp, looping cursive that looked near perfect even when it was smudged by the side of your palm. You used to let someone—let your sister, let  _ Rebecca _ trace over words you’ve written so her own penmanship could improve from its chicken scratch.

You have to stop, shake your hand out when your wrist starts to ache, sharp and insistent, and you’re surprised to see you’ve filled four pages, front and back, with information. It’s more concise than you expected it to be, and you shut your eyes for a moment, trying to will the ache in the sockets away.

The door upstairs creaks open, and you can hear Rogers uttering something, so low even you can’t hear it, but then you hear him coming down the stairs alone, appearing in the doorway leading His scrubs are spotless, unlike yours, and he’s still barefoot.

You look away, keep your eyes on everything you’ve written down instead. "So, you’re up to date,” you say.

“You could say that,” Rogers says tightly. When you glance at him, he’s coming closer, body a line of tension, a deep furrow between his brows. “Do you think we can talk?”   
  
“I’ve done a lot of talking today, Rogers,” you say, the name fitting in your mouth too easily. It makes his eyes soften on you, makes you feel even more exposed than before. “More won’t hurt.”   
  
“I’ll be outside whenever you’re ready,” Rogers says, and walks through the room like he’s been here before. Maybe he has.   


He opens one of the blackout curtains, revealing two french doors. He unlocks and opens one, stepping out onto the patio, leaning against the wooden balcony overlooking the woods.

The door is cracked open and it leaves a cool breeze slipping through, reaching you even from this far. You scratch the itch at the back of your neck for a long moment, watching the back of Rogers’ head and knowing he feels it.

You shut the notebook, set the pen on top, and slide off of the bench, feeling the breeze grow stronger as you reach the door. You slip outside, shutting it behind you with a soft click.

It’s quiet out here, and the world ahead is choked with trees, their foliage thick and lush green, and you can smell dirt, smell the chill in the air, the sharp sweetness of pine. It smells familiar, and you think if it rained, you’d be able to make sense of it.

You come closer, mirroring Rogers as you cross your arms over the rail. There’s a gap between you, just big enough that you don’t feel every movement he makes. Cicadas screech somewhere nearby, the wind rustles the trees.

“They, SHIELD I mean, brought me to a place like this,” Rogers says, breaking the silence without looking at you. “When I came off the ice.”

You take advantage of the moment to get a good look at him, at the fading bruise on his face, the outline of cuts on his chin, the corner of his mouth, all put there by your hand.

“It was upstate, about as high up in the Catskills as you can get,” Rogers continues. “It was October, leaves just started to change, and the cabin was bigger than this, right by a lake, but it—” something distant and angry passes over his face as he meets your eyes. “There were cameras everywhere, a laser powered fence. Felt like I couldn’t even think about leaving without someone getting wind.”   


“Sounds more like a prison cell than a safe house,” you say before you can stop yourself, the words falling from your lips almost automatically.

He gives you more of a reaction than you expected, jaw clenching tight with the need to respond, fingers white-knuckling against the railing. He wants to come closer, but stays where he is.

In some ways, Rogers was an asset, too. Maybe he had the illusion of freedom, but someone was always watching, always keeping a close eye.

“Yeah,” Rogers says distantly, nodding. “Yeah, it was.”   
  
You watch him get a stronger grip on himself, shaking his head, shutting his eyes briefly before his gaze clears and he looks at you once more. “My point was that I don’t want you to think you’re a prisoner,” he says, but you’re still unconvinced. “This isn’t—God, this isn’t detainment. No one knows you’re here aside from us, it’s just—”   
  
“Precaution,” you finish. “I understand.”   
  
Rogers doesn’t speak, just stays exactly where he is, listening to the chirping of crickets, growing louder as the sky darkens, as the motion-sensing lamps flicker on behind you.

“You read the file, you heard the guards at the hospital,” you say, thumb picking at a spot of chipped, red-brown paint before you force yourself to stop. “HYDRA wanted me dead, and now they think I’m dead. If I stay off the grid, they don’t have a choice but to believe that.”

“And you don’t think they’ll find you,” Rogers says. It’s not quite a question, but you can tell he wants an answer.

“The nearest base is eight hours away,” you explain. “And they won’t find this place. It’s secluded enough.”   
  
That should reassure you, that should convince you to stay and tell you you’re better off here than roaming the streets of DC, almost asking to be found.

“They won’t find you, either,” you add, pushing away to go back inside.

“Wait,” Rogers says quickly, and he’s reaching out for you, stopping just before his fingers can brush against the material of the shirt you stole from him, but you don’t pull away. You don’t feel cornered by him, not even when he lowers his hand against your right shoulder, thumb settling against the edge of your collarbone. “Thank you. For what you did.”

The heat of his palm is bleeding into your skin, and his expression has softened around the edges again, the wrinkle between his brows smoothing away, but he’s not looking for someone behind your eyes, he’s just looking at you, whoever you are now. Certainly not James Buchanan Barnes, but not the Winter Soldier, either.

You nod, unable to summon any words to your lips, and don’t tense at the touch, even though it’s making your head swim, making your skin itch for more. You can’t recall anyone ever touching you gently, save for the memory of a mother whose face you can’t see.

Rogers’ hand slides away, and the spot where he touched turns cold as you walk back inside. The breeze isn’t rushing through your ears anymore, but you don’t feel bad.

You just feel like he shifted something inside you, rearranged things in a way that somehow makes all the sense in the world and none at all.

-

Wilson and Natalia are mid-conversation in the kitchen when you come back inside, followed by Rogers. They look bewildered, but they don’t remark on it.   
  
“I’m not finished,” you tell Wilson, then glance at Natalia before you swipe the notebook from the table, slide it onto the counter between them. “That’s just some of the East Coast.”

Natalia is the one to flip the notebook open. Rogers walks past you to look over her shoulder. “Half of this wasn’t in the leak,” Natalia mutters before she looks up at you for the first time since you spoke to her at the hospital. “I thought they wiped you after every mission.”   


“Well,” you say, dry. “Looks like they don’t hold too well.”

“Wow, look at you, three days on your own and you’re using wisecracks,” Natalia says, tilts her head with something like a smirk on her face as she flips to the next page. “Humor’s always a good start, or so I’ve been told.”

You don’t smile, but you feel steadied, just a little. Natalia is familiar ground. Familiar like the grip of a knife or the squeeze of a trigger, the bite of a cold Russian winter, or the spicy, earthy smell of the tea they sent the young Widows with on long stake-outs.

You only hum, but that’s enough of an acknowledgement between the two of you. You don’t have their trust, not really, not even Rogers’, but you aren’t at odds. You don’t feel like you’re reporting to handlers, or functioning as a sniper while Rumlow and the rest of the STRIKE team did recon.

Not an asset, but maybe a cohort of sorts if you provide the right information.

-

They ask questions, and you answer them. No one looms above you, but you still feel off-balance, like you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It takes longer than you expect, and the time slips away from the four of you. By the time Natalia gets the information she wants, it’s nearly midnight.

“So,” she says, sat in an armchair with her legs tucked up, elbow propped on the arm with her chin resting against her fist. “This doesn’t sound like a guns blazing type of job.”   


You shake your head. “Most of these are fronts,” you explain. “The strongholds are warehouses, banks, anywhere with the right enforcements, and there’s only six of those. Dallas, Seattle, DC, Manhattan, Atlanta, and Denver.”   
  
“Been a lot of arrests these past few days,” Natalia says. “Probably not a whole lot of people there now, gives the CIA time to sweep in and raid the rest…” she glances between Rogers and Wilson, sitting on either side of her. Wilson in another armchair, Rogers on the floor. “Sharon basically made a beeline for them, so with any luck, she ends up on a half-decent team and we feed her information as it comes in.”   
  
“Meaning you get to stay out of it, if that’s what you want,” Wilson says to you. “Only people you talk to is us, and whatever we can’t tell Sharon, we handle ourselves.”   
  
You feel a muscle pulse in your jaw as you look down at the opened notebook, then back between the three of them.

“This isn’t a fair exchange,” you say bluntly. “What am I getting in return?”

“Well, what do you want?” Rogers asks, taking you by surprise.

It seems to take Natalia and Wilson by surprise, too, because a heavy silence falls over the room, pressing down on your ears as you choose your words, swallowing down your lingering hesitation. 

You’re not used to calling the shots, to having a sense of control in a room of other people.

“The charge that grunt put on my arm,” you begin, and raise your left hand, flexing its fingers despite the way they lag, servos grinding and whirring in a way that pinches deep inside your shoulder. “It’s meant to incapacitate, but it’s…it can cause malfunctions. I have a repair manual, but I can’t do it with one hand.”

“Fair enough,” Wilson says.

“Fair enough,” Natalia repeats. “But I’m hearing an ‘and’ in there.”

“And I want your word,” you say, leaning forward. “When I go off the grid, I don’t want any eyes on me. None of your people, none of SHIELD’s, no one. Give me your word, Natalia.”   
  
“Depends on who’s going off the grid,” Natalia says, and then she reaches beside her, holding your stolen passports, spread out like a hand of poker. “Is it the Winter Soldier? Is it John Bouchard? Henry Cook? What are their lives like?”

Rogers sits up straighter. “Nat, I doubt he’s gonna—”   
  
“Sorry to break it to you, Rogers, but you’re too biased to have a say in this,” Natalia argues.

You can practically feel your hackles rising, anger festering somewhere above your stomach, but you force it down, shutting your eyes to get your bearings.   
  
When you open them, Natalia is still staring you down. You don’t let your gaze waver.

“I’m not going to kill anyone,” you say slowly. “Not unless I have to. I meant what I said in the hospital. After this is over, you’ll never see me again. Пожалуйста, поверь мне. Все, что я хочу, это исчезнуть.”

You don’t say it to gain her favor, because it’s the truth. A truth you don’t want Rogers and Wilson to overhear. 

Natalia flattens her mouth into a tight line, assessing you in a way that makes you feel like she’s flaying you open, like you’re nothing but muscle and bone.   
  
“Just remember what I told you,” she says, and unfolds from her position to put the passports down beside the notebook.

These are your only possessions. The thought of that makes you feel hollow and cold, like the air is flowing straight through you.

You gather everything up, slip it back into the duffle, resting against the side of the sofa. You don’t know how you didn’t notice it had been moved.  _ Human error _ , you think, and somehow feel better at that fact.

“I will,” you say to Natalia, and slip down the hall, up the stairs to start scoping out the rest of the cabin while you can.

-

Upstairs, there’s another bathroom, a linen closet, and two bedrooms. Both have full beds and scarce decorations, nothing but the bed linens and the blankets.

One part of you thinks you’ve never slept anywhere this spacious before, and another thinks of what Rogers said on the patio, and leaves you giving into suspicion. 

You check both rooms thoroughly, knocking on the walls, scoping out the corners of the ceiling, checking under the beds, behind the dressers, in the closets, and—

“No bugs here,” Natalia says from behind you, leaning in the doorway with her arms crossed. You don’t flinch, though you think she wants you to. “I would know. I still check once in a while.”

You look around the room, at the pale plaid covers on the bed, the scarce decoration. “It seems like a good place to hide,” you say. “Secluded enough.”   
  
“He’ll be safe here, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Natalia says. “I stood here for months after…” she juts her jaw, tilts her head. “Well, you know.”   
  
“I’m glad you had somewhere to go,” you say. “People to help you.”

A fraction of the mask on her face slips, some of the ice melting away. “There’s clothes in the other room if you want them,” she says instead of whatever she’s thinking. “Not mine, obviously. A friend uses this place once in a while. He should be about your size.”

You nod and step past her, but then you’re stopping in your tracks, turning back to face her. “Natalia—” you begin.   
  
“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” Natalia says, cutting you off, speaking low enough that Wilson and Rogers won’t be able to hear her from downstairs. Her arms are crossed tight, eyes ringed with fatigue, with stress. “But I remember what happened last time you tried to defect.”   
  
“They did a good job, because the last time I remember seeing you was in Odessa,” you say, and it sounds far away even to your own ears. You’re almost able to feel fat snowflakes falling and catching on your hair, see Natalia through the scope of your rifle.

She meets your eyes, “It’s not like you had a choice.”

And that was the truth. You didn’t have a choice, but…“It was still my finger on the trigger,” you say.

“Whose finger was on the trigger in Minsk?” Natalia retorts. “We all have blood on our hands. If you’re lucky, you’ll learn how to live with it.”

You aren’t sure that’s possible. The blood on your hands feels like it’s soaked into your bones. And you dirtied the hands of others, too, taught them to point and shoot, to strike their target with as much precision as you would.

If you dream tonight, it will be of little girls in ballet slippers, of cold expressions with wide eyes and guns too big for their hands.   
  
The memory tastes rancid in your mouth. “What do I call you now?” you ask.   
  
Natalia shuts the door halfway, lingering in the gap, then raises a brow. “What do I call you?” she retorts.

You shake your head. You don’t want a name, not now. You don’t know who or what you are.

She gives you a look that holds nothing in particular, and then she shuts the door quietly.

You turn around and walk away, wondering if she’s done the same, if she feels the same weight on her shoulders as you do.

-

The other bedroom smells of dust, and is almost identical to Natalia’s, the only difference being Wilson’s jacket left on the bed. There’s only one window with a thick, drawn curtain. The headboards are pressed on either side of it. Reduced visibility. Wilson and Rogers are soldiers, too. 

It’s no surprise that they’d keep it in mind, that Natalia would too, but it means you’ll be left at a disadvantage.

Sleeping downstairs isn’t ideal. There are too many windows. The trees just mere feet away are high and sturdy, give a perfect view into the cabin. The wind is calm tonight. It’s the perfect perch for a sniper. 

It’s exactly where you would have placed yourself.

The upstairs bathroom is better. The window is small and impossible for anyone to get through or see through due to the grime piled up on it, and the only vent is the size of your palm. The clawfoot tub is large enough to accommodate you, preferable to the softness of a bed or the slow sinking sensation of the old sofa. Just the thought of sleeping on a cool, hard surface away from any prying eyes helps you breathe easier.

You busy yourself with finding the clothes Natalia mentioned, pulling open the drawers until you find one full of shirts and pants. It looks like they’ve been left here intentionally, since there’s so much. Whoever comes here comes often, and is sloppy. The clothes are all crumpled and messy, smelling faintly of…

...dog?

Raising a t-shirt to your nose, you sniff it and wrinkle your nose. Definitely a dog.

You drop it back into the drawer. You’ll sleep in what you’re wearing, if you can sleep at all. While you feel exhaustion pulling at your bones, your mind is racing in a way that’s almost overwhelming.

You’ll have to gather your few belongings from downstairs soon, but you need solitude. You need time to  _ think _ .

-

On the stairs, you side-step Wilson, who’s on his way up. Neither of you say a word, but he does catch your eye as he passes you, jerks his head toward the living room, and his look says it all—Rogers is waiting for you downstairs.

You nod and continue on your way, hearing him shut the door to his bedroom. The hallway feels longer somehow, as you walk, and the dimness of it almost feels like a pair of eyes on the back of your head, You resist the temptation to rub at your nape as you turn a corner, find Rogers sitting where you left him.

“You need to sleep,” you say, the command feeling strange in your mouth. “You’re still healing.”   
  
“Staying awake a while longer won’t hurt me too bad,” he says, sitting up straighter. A faint, almost wistful smile pulls at the corners of his mouth. “Besides, I thought I could help you with your arm.”

A dark clench of dread snakes its way through you, leaves you clenching your jaw hard enough to make your head ache. The feeling of being restrained, being stared at and examined returns with a horrible sort of clarity.

Rogers must see it on your face, because he says, “We could do it here if you want. Or not at all. Your choice.”   
  
You blink, frozen in place. “My choice,” you say, voice lost in your throat. You clear it gruffly. “Fine. Do it.”

Rogers nods. “There’s a toolbox in the kitchen, I just need to grab it,” he says, and pulls himself up from his seat without much strain. He should be better by tomorrow, but you can’t help wondering. “You got the manual?”

You nod as he walks past you, suddenly overtaken with the phantom pressure of his hand on your shoulder, warm and steady. He disappears into the kitchen, and you crouch down, unzipping your bag to retrieve the file.

You drop it onto the coffee table, and then pull your shirt over your head. When you toss it to the side, you see Rogers standing in front of you. He glances between the shirt and you. “You didn’t have to—”   
  
“You’ll get at it easier,” you explain, looking at his forehead rather than into his eyes. “It’s okay.”

Still, Rogers looks wary, thumb dragging hard over the handle of the toolbox before it stops completely. “Fine,” he says without any heat to it, just resignation. “Okay.”   
  
And then he sits down on the sofa, on your left side, leaving some space between the two of you. He reaches forward for the manual, opening it gingerly.

He’s handling it like a bomb, a look of something like bewilderment, like thinly-veiled anger, on his face.

“Can you check the toolbox?” Rogers asks. “I don’t know if we have everything on—everything listed here.”   
  
You huff, reach for it, and tug it into your lap. You don’t look back when you feel Rogers’ eyes on you, choosing to busy yourself with opening the box, removing its contents slowly and laying them out on the table.

There are screwdrivers of varying sizes, and two sets of pliers, one large and thick, the other small and thin. The other tools aren’t necessary—hammers and wrenches, plenty of other things that won’t help you.

It’s enough. If whoever ransacked the vault didn’t take the tools for your arm, you wouldn’t have this problem at all, and now, you suddenly don’t feel so lost, because this may have happened before. You feel the faintest trickle of familiarity trying to cut through the fog, trying to say this isn’t new to you.

“Are you any good with tools?” you ask Rogers, allowing yourself to look at him now that you don’t feel his eyes on you so heavily.

“I’ve—well, I haven’t done anything like this,” Rogers answers, almost sheepish. “But I’m a fast learner.”   
  
Good enough. “Then start with my hand,” you say, turning slightly to give him a better view of it. “It’s where I have the least movement.”

-

It seems to be becoming a pattern, remembering more than you thought you did.

You remember which screwdriver to use, remember to keep still when you let Rogers open the plate in your palm, exposing the inner workings of it, tightening the screws with a screwdriver as thin as a toothpick.

“Does that hurt?” Rogers asks, so quietly you almost miss it. He doesn’t look away from what he’s doing, not for a moment.

The question has you taken aback, but you do your best not to show it.

You watch him instead, half-illuminated by the few lamps on, by the overhead lights, which are warm and thankfully not the fluorescent, green-tinged lights of the vault, of an examination room.

“No,” you murmur after a while, shaking your head minutely.

“Looks like all the screws in here were loosened up or crooked, and it only would have gotten worse if we waited any longer.”

Just like that, you feel a  _ click _ and you can move your fingers effortlessly, flexing them without so much as a clang, just their usual faint whir.

“Okay,” Rogers breathes, turns to face you, a fraction of his stress melted away, a small, thrilled smile on his lips. “That was easier than I thought it would be.”

You almost smile back, but you don’t. You don’t think you know how, or maybe you can try, but it might come out wobbly and jagged, a mangled, like your mouth has been split open with a knife.

“Wanna keep going?” Rogers asks, closing the plate on your palm.

You raise your right shoulder in a shrug, and offer him your forearm.

-

The plates are more intricate, the further up you go. Trickier to deal with, but between your slowly-resurfacing memories and Rogers reading the instructions, you’re able to find the right spots to open, gritting your teeth all the while.

It’s harder to tune the sensations out now. The inner workings of your arm are more sensitive further up, and the screws are bigger, thicker. Rogers has to change screwdrivers, and now, you can feel every twist and turn of it, every single—

A small, pained noise is tugged from your throat when Rogers tightens a screw, and you feel it grinding, rattling, vibrating deep into your shoulder and up into your collarbone, your skull. It’s an ugly, invasive feeling that has your eyes squeezing shut.

“Christ,” Rogers hisses, and pulls his hands away like he’s been burned. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” you say quickly, strangled with pain. “I’m fine.”

You gulp down a breath, try not to focus on the sudden burst of anxiety welling up from your stomach.

“You’re shaking,” Rogers says, and would you look at that, you are. Shaking from head to toe. 

You nod, barely. “Like fucking Jell-O,” you croak.

Through this, you somehow remember the taste, the texture of it in your mouth, the cloying sweetness of artificial lime, bright green and topped with whipped cream. You aren’t sure when you ever ate it, because you were never given anything as a reward. Or maybe you were, once, before there were handlers and pain and blood under your fingernails. Maybe it was a reward to yourself, for working yourself to the bone. Maybe it was at a restaurant—no, an automat.

You don’t have to think too hard to know those don’t exist anymore.

“Hey.” Rogers’ voice is too soft, too gentle, same as his eyes swiveling worriedly over your face. “Hey, we can just call it a night, you know.”

His hand is resting on your knee, and tremoring so minutely, anyone else would have missed it.   
  
Without thinking, you cover it with your own. Whether it’s to stop his hand shaking or your own, you aren’t sure. His skin is just as warm as it was earlier, bleeding into the tender skin of your palm.

“I’m fine,” you repeat quietly. “Keep going.”

Rogers stares at you like you’ve grown a second head, and then he gets a hold of himself, the haze clearing from his eyes. “Yeah,” he murmurs. “Yeah, just let me…”   
  
You lift your hand away to free him, and he waits only a moment before he moves it away, but it feels like much longer than that.

“You’ll tell me if it hurts?” Rogers asks, reaching for the screwdriver again. “You’ll tell me if you want me to stop?”

“I’ll tell you,” you say, though you can’t promise him that. Not really. You aren’t sure if you’ll start shaking again, or if it will hurt again, or if you’ll slip off somewhere unreachable the more he works.   
  
“Okay,” Rogers says, and he scoots closer before he starts again with even more caution than before.

-

Rogers finishes tightening the screw he abandoned, and you twist your flesh fingers into the sofa’s upholstery, shut your eyes against the faint grind that reverberates through your bones.

“Did they call you something?” Rogers murmurs, tightening the fifth and final screw there. “Did they ever give you a name?”

“‘Would you name a cog in a machine?’” you quote, speaking in a way that has recognition sparking in Rogers’ eyes.

The screw clicks in, and he slides the plate back into place, a muscle pulsing in his jaw. “You know you’re not a cog,” he says, like a knife is lodged in his throat.

You don’t respond. You keep your eyes fixed on the floor, on the ornate patterns of the red Persian rug, faded with age.

“Pierce was wrong,” Rogers presses, and he’s flaring up with anger, anger at your expense. “Zola was wrong, everything HYDRA did to you was wrong.”   
  
“I wouldn’t have ran if I thought it was right,” you tell him.

Rogers hesitates, mouth opening and closing. “No,” he says softly. “No, I guess you wouldn’t have. I’m sorry.”   


You shake your head. “What they did to me, it…” you lick your lips, dry as sandpaper against your tongue. “I’m like you. I heal fast. Means my brain does, too, and it works when they’re not frying it. Or drugging me.”

The breath Rogers lets out is sharp and painful, but he doesn’t respond. He just scrubs his free hand over his twisted up mouth and then says, almost breathlessly, “Let me check your shoulder.”

Experimentally, you curl your hand into a fist and flex your forearm, watch the plates whir and shift and rearrange themselves before they stall at your shoulder, making a stuttering, screeching noise.

You nod and offer it to him. He piles a few throw pillows beneath your elbow and has you rest it there.

“In the bicep,” you say, answering his question before he can ask it. You reach over, pointing the spot out. “That should fix it.”   
  
“I don’t wanna hurt you,” Rogers says, voice still as strangled as before.   
  
The hollow metal bones in your shoulder will feel it, feel the screws locking back into place, feel Rogers pulling at the plates even more than before, but you still say, “I’d rather it hurt than go dead on me.”

You feel his hand on your knee again, fleeting, and then he gets to work.

When he finds the right spot, you almost shut your eyes, bracing yourself for the pain, but you don’t want him to see it. You don’t want to bare yourself to him anymore than you already have.

-

You stay quiet, stoic, through it all. You grit your teeth against the six screws in your bicep. Don’t make a sound when they grind or click deep inside you. You just breathe out slowly while Rogers shuts the compartment, the plates finally whirring back into place.

They all flow exactly the way they’re meant to, from your shoulder to your fingertips. You didn’t realize everything on your left side hurt until it stopped hurting.

When you raise your eyes to Rogers, his face is as drawn and pale as it was in the hospital, and it makes the remnants of his bruise, the stubborn cuts on his face even more obvious. His mouth is still twisted up like he ate something rotten. 

He looks sick, almost as sick as he does in the memory you have of him.

You almost want to check his forehead, the back of his neck, but that’s the same moment  Rogers gives you another sad excuse for a smile, one that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Well, it the way it should,” he says quietly. “Feel like it?”

You hum in confirmation and say, “Doesn’t hurt anymore.”   
  
The smile just barely creeps up the rest of his face, and looks more relieved than happy. “Okay,” Rogers murmurs, glancing at the clock. You mirror him and find it’s past one in the morning. “I’m sure you probably want to get some sleep, so I’ll leave you to it, I guess.”

He looks like he’s about to reach for you, to pat your shoulder, but he keeps his hands to himself as he pushes off the sofa, visibly uneasy as he walks away, like he wants to look back, but refuses to allow himself, like you’ll disappear if he does.

“Rogers,” you call when he’s halfway across the room.

He startles like it’s a gunshot, stopping in his tracks. You can only see his side profile, the long, crooked line of his nose, before he looks back at you, lips slightly parted, shoulders drawn up tight.

“Thank you,” you say.

It might be the wrong thing to say, because his chest hitches forward like there’s a fish hook caught on his ribs, his already cracking composure falling to pieces. “You don’t need to...” he rasps, nods stiffly. “Yeah, of course.” 

He looks like he wants to say more, but he purses his lips against it and chokes out, “See you in the morning.”

You let him walk away, let him all but peel out of the room, and you don’t look back. You simply sit where you are and listen to his heavy footsteps on the stairs, counting each one. There are ten steps, and he stops on the fifth.

He stops for a long time, and then he continues up, shutting the bedroom door behind him.

Even from down here, you can hear the bed creak from how heavily he sits on it.

-

When you pull your shirt back on, you want your body to unwind, but you feel scraped raw from the inside out, the rest of your body feeling creaky and thick with rust despite it being blood and bone, flesh and muscle. You almost feel feverish with it, eyes heavy and reflexes slow.

Maybe Rogers is right, maybe you do need to sleep.

-

You take your things and you trudge upstairs, knowing there’s no point trying to be quiet. Rogers’ hearing is as good as yours, Wilson was a soldier and won’t leave his vigilance behind, and Natalia is…

Well, Natalia.

You shut the bathroom door behind you before you lean against it, your skull pressed against the flimsy wood, eyes shut tight. You consider locking it, but the thought makes your mouth go dry, makes your limbs feel like Jell-O all over again.

_ Breathe _ , you tell yourself, and shut the lights off.   


It’s a small mercy, the dark. The only light now is coming from a night light, plugged in by the sink and emitting a faint, warm glow. Now, the room doesn’t feel so confining, doesn’t feel so cold.

Somehow, you feel even more lost than before, and the memory of Rogers’ gentle touches ghost over your skin, ghost over your left arm. You can still feel his gentle tinkering, the heat of his body so close to your own.

It doesn’t make you feel better, but it doesn’t make you feel any worse.

When you crawl into the bathtub, you lie on your side with your duffle squished between your knees, your cheek pillowed on your left arm, covered only by a thin layer of material and whirring softly.

You fall asleep within seconds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Пожалуйста, поверь мне. Все, что я хочу, это исчезнуть. = Please believe me. All I want is to disappear.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: while it is non-explicit and nothing happens, there is a mention of sexual abuse. for spoilers, please see the end notes.

This time, you don’t recall your dreams, but you are aware of blinking awake with a small, animalistic sound on your lips, vibrating in your throat. You don’t have time to wonder what it was, because you fall asleep again, tugged down helplessly by your own exhaustion.

Somehow, this doesn’t alarm you.

Somehow, you feel safe.

-

You wake up to a deep, dark blue dawn that leaves the world looking soft around the edges.

Some ancient part of you that’s managed to hide from HYDRA’s conditioning wants to shut its eyes again, sink back into the reprieve of sleep, into the sensation of nothing in particular, but is preferable to the idea of facing whatever is waiting for you downstairs.

There’s a deep heaviness surrounding you, a warmth enveloping your body, and you squeeze your eyes shut hard before you open then again, open them to find a blanket draped over you.

It’s a green patchwork quilt, with little patterned squares of yellow and blue. It smells of dust and washing powder.

You knit your brows together, wondering how it got there, how you didn’t notice anyone coming into the bathroom while you were asleep, open and vulnerable, and managed to slip out without alerting you.

But your weakness wasn’t used against you, not from what you can tell. The quilt is the only change.

And you know exactly who put it there.

-

When you swallow, you find that mouth tastes ripe, so you swish it with water while you root around under the sink until you find a used tube of toothpaste and an unused toothbrush in a package that’s been half ripped open. 

Your eyes feel thick and crusty, and you have to wash your face with hand soap that says it smells like milk and honey, but only smells faintly sweet, until you feel more awake, until you don’t feel coated in your own filth all over again, like the day you waded through the river and dragged Rogers’ unconscious body behind you.

In the mirror, you look no more human than you did in Rogers’ apartment. There are still dark circles under your eyes, your hair is still limp and unkempt, stubble growing thicker on your cheeks. It rasps softly when you run your fingers over it, up and down, side to side.

You look like you’re on the run. Even a civilian would be able to see that.

It’s tiring, staring. You fold the quilt up and open the door, set the bundle back into the linen closet between the bathroom and Rogers and Wilson’s bedroom, lingering there for a moment, listening for movement, for the whisper of sheets, for a body tossing and turning or the sound of someone breathing.   
  
You take a slow, silent step forward and crouch down to stare into the keyhole, breathing soundlessly through your nose.

They’re asleep, both of them. Wilson on his side, Rogers on his stomach. They face away from each other, sleep on the far sides of the bed, but their breathing is synced, rising and falling with the practiced ease of soldiers who know to sleep when they can, where they can.

You don’t bother checking Natalia’s room. She’d be more liable to notice you watching her and surely say something, so you walk away, the floor creaking beneath your boots. You’ll have to learn how to navigate the cabin, soon, You’ll have to learn the bones of it and how to avoid its noisier spots.

The stairs are easy, however, and you’re able to descend silently, walking on the very edges of them until you get to the bottom. There’s an itch somewhere in the back of your mind, telling you to rummage through your bag for the pen and notebook, to write  _ something _ down, though you quite aren’t sure what it is.

You pull both out anyway, slide into the bench of the breakfast nook, and flip the pages until you can find a blank one, one that doesn’t have any indentations from your previous writings.

Maybe you’ll be able to remember a few more bases, a few more names. Maybe this will be enough proof that you’re cooperating under your own steam, that you’re here for the right reasons.

-

Time passes. The sun rises higher. The words refuse to come out. No locations, no names, no memories.

Frustration pools hot in your gut, and you’re left with your flesh fingers twisted in the roots of your hair, the other hand holding the pen tight, digging a hole through the blank page.

You’re so absorbed in your disjointed, sleep-addled thoughts that you don’t notice anyone in the kitchen until you hear Rogers say, rough with fatigue, “How’s your arm?”

He’s pouring coffee, dark and steaming and smelling even better than it did in the hospital cafeteria, into a mug. He’s wearing what looks like the clothes from the drawer, a soft white t-shirt with black and yellow plaid pajama bottoms.   
  
His eyes are bloodshot and red-rimmed, but dry, ringed with dark circles that look like bruises.

You nod and look back to the blank page, insides twisting into knots. “I can’t think of any more bases,” you say, tapping the pen against the tabletop,  _ taptaptaptaptaptaptaptap _ . A constant, nervous rhythm.   
  
“You’ve already done most of the East Coast,” Rogers says. “That’s...a lot to go off of. Hell, it’s more than enough. We owe you for that.”

“Was it you in the bathroom last night?” you ask.

That has a lengthy pause falling over the room, pressing hard on your ears. Rogers flattens his mouth into a tight line, holding onto his mug like a lifeline. “I heard you talking,” he admits. “So I came in.”   
  
“Because you thought I was double-crossing you,” you say matter-of-factly, turning to face him. “Can’t say I blame you.”

Rogers drums his fingers against the countertop, his coffee abandoned, and then he says, “I know you aren’t, I know, and...” he looks down, just for a moment. “I knew that when I came in and saw you were asleep, and that when I listened closer, you weren’t making any sense.”

You glare at him, hoping he elaborates.

Thankfully, he does. 

“You were speaking a few different languages, but from what I could understand,” Rogers says. “It sounded like begging. You—” he huffs sharply, like he’s angry. “You said  _ let me out. _ ”   
  
A feeling of helplessness, of humiliation, scorches you from the inside out, and you grit your teeth as you realize your dream wasn’t a dream at all.

It was the memory of a base hidden somewhere in the wilderness of Novosibirsk Oblast, long before you were handed off to Karpov. The cell they kept you in was deep and dark, and you constantly guarded despite being weak and trembling with fever, right wrist chained to a filthy cot and the stump of your left arm wrapped in gauze no one ever bothered to change.

“Медвежья яма,” you reply. Rogers stares at you, at a loss. “The Bear Pit. It’s where the Russians kept me in the beginning.”

To call it that was an overstatement, because The Bear Pit was as narrow and confining as a well.

The walls were close and stunk of dampness, of blood and waste that surely belonged to you. There was an iron grate stuck over the opening, and casted sickly yellow light over your prison in little outlined squares that you traced and counted with your eyes.

You had screamed yourself hoarse, screamed curses and pleas for help English, in Russian, in any other language you could manage to remember you spoke, and when that didn’t work—

“I used to sing,” you say, as if Rogers was able to hear everything you just thought of.

Rogers looks like you backhanded him. “I... he murmurs, like he’s talking to himself. “Yeah, you liked to sing. You sang all the time.”   


“I did it because it ticked the guards off,” you say. “Whatever popped into my head. One of them…” you run your tongue over your teeth. “He came down this—it was a chain ladder they’d drop down sometimes. He uncuffed me, brought down this thermos of solyanka. Said he wasn’t gonna finish it anyway. I told him that was a waste and took it, drank it down like it was the last thing I was ever gonna get. He watched and said, there. There, now you can keep singing.”   


You run your fingers over your chin before you cross your arms on the table. “I think he pitied me, or maybe he wanted to fuck me,” you continue. Rogers cringes at that. “I didn’t find out. Didn’t matter, because I bashed his skull in with the thermos.”

The thermos was metal and painted pale green. It was covered in blood by the end, dripping with it, chunks of brain and shards of bone clinging to your skin. Your fingers were slippery with it all as you climbed the ladder, sweating and groaning as you dragged your body up into the light.

“I got out.” You look everywhere but Rogers’ eyes. You look at his chin, his cheek, his forehead. “Then they found me in the snow two days later, frostbitten to hell, and I was so out of my mind. I was hoping for someone to find me and when they did I thought—” you laugh bitterly, but you can’t recall ever laughing, so it comes out in shards. A horrible, grating sound punched out of your chest. “I thought  _ oh, thank God _ , but I don’t believe in no God, Rogers, and I knew He wasn’t listening when I got thrown back into The Bear Pit, or when Zola showed up a few weeks later and gave me  _ this _ .”

You raise your hand, and show him your left hand, gleaming dully in the morning light.

It’s the most you’ve said in days, and the words feel off in your mouth. Your chest is heaving with it. Rogers’ is, too. His mouth opens and shuts, and you have to look away, hiding your hands from him, clasping them together under the table, between your knees.

You didn’t realize how much of that you recalled, and now it sits on your skin like  _ filth _ . You don’t want to remember that. You want the honey-sweet memories of your sister and your mother, or even the memory of Rogers’ hand, clammy and chubby with youth, gripped around your own.

Rogers sighs and opens his mouth to speak, but you shake your head, tight and jerky.

“Don’t say you feel sorry for me,” you try to snap, but it only makes you sound pitiful. “It won’t change what happened.”   
  
“I know,” Rogers says, wretched, and his gaze makes you feel cut open, like your guts are spilling all over the floor. “I know that, but that wasn’t what I was gonna ask.”

You stare at him, waiting.   
  
“Take a walk with me?” Rogers asks.

You look down, and then back up at him. “You don’t have any shoes on,” you answer.   
  
Rogers raises his brows, as if to say  _ so? _

-

It’s cold in the woods. If you didn’t run so hot, you think you’d be shivering.   
  
Rogers is dressed almost as sparsely as you are, walking just far enough away that someone could comfortably be between you. You think it’s more for your sake than his own.

The sun is creeping over the horizon, the ground crunching beneath your boots. You keep your hands buried in your pockets, keep your jaw clenched tight to keep yourself from speaking anymore than you already have. It’s soothing, the silence. All you hear is the fading chirp of crickets and birdsong.

Soothing, but if you wrack your brain, you know that you wouldn’t think that at all. Not really. You think you’d prefer the rush of cars and the shouting of drunks, the yowl of alley cats, the sounds of footsteps clunking around somewhere above you. The quiet makes you anxious.

Of course, you don’t voice this. You just put one foot in front of the other, look into the trees ahead, taking in the thick quiet around you.

Rogers doesn’t say much either, and you’re grateful for it. He only keeps his eyes ahead, looking toward the sun rising, the burnt orange light cutting through the dark blue clouds.

You stop after a while and Rogers does, too. “Looks like a painting,” you remark, so quiet you aren’t sure he hears you.

He might not, because he never responds. Just flexes his hands— _ artist’s hands _ , you think—and clenches them into fists, like they’re bound by his sides.

-

The sun rises higher as you walk, but doesn’t make the air any warmer. A persistent, wet chill lingers and while you still aren’t cold, you would prefer a little heat. Something to cut through the gloom.

You suddenly realize how silent, how isolated the woods are and look over at Rogers, weaponless and trusting.

It would be so easy. So easy to just—

You exhale sharply, shutting your eyes tight. You don’t want that. You know you don’t. You wouldn’t have saved his life twice just to take it in the end.

When you open your eyes, you swallow down a breath. “How’s,” you begin, hesitant, and pick at a thread inside your pocket. “How are you healing up?”

Rogers stops in his tracks and lifts the hem of his shirt. He shows you smooth, unblemished skin without so much as an outline of the entry wound. You feel the faintest tug behind your navel and do your best to ignore it.

“Not so bad,” Rogers says, dropping the thin, heathered material. “I started healing once you unhooked me from that drip.”   
  
“Because it was slowing you down,” you explain, stiff, glance down at the grass, lush and green. “Your body was so busy fighting off the drugs it didn’t have any fuel left to burn.”

He doesn’t disagree, and he continues walking, continues keeping his distance. The cabin isn’t far away, and it’s obvious you’re not going any further than this. It makes sense that Rogers would want to keep you close to it, even if he won’t say it out loud.

When you make a long, slow circle around the cabin, he walks closer to you. You almost wish he didn’t because now you can see just how worn he looks. You expect him to stay silent, or say something about what you told him earlier, but he only asks, “What did you sing?”

You knit your brows together.   
  
“In the Bear Pit,” Rogers clarifies. “What did you sing?”

“Does it matter?” you ask.

Rogers shrugs.

You almost say something snide, but decide against it, sighing slowly.

“ _ Quick, can’t you see, sir? _ ” you sing, low and tuneless. “ _ Oh, goodness gracious me, sir, would you look at Company B, sir? I think they’re retreating _ .”

It’s without the usual cadences, the jauntiness it should have, but you can taste blood on the back of your tongue, feel the shivery, painful hunger you grew so used to, smell death and dampness on the walls.

So, you can’t say you particularly like the song.

“That’s from a movie,” Rogers says quietly, not so far off from your own tone. “Road to Singapore.”

“I know,” you mutter, mouth tasting of sawdust. “I saw it.”

Your mouth is not on your side today. It spouts off whatever it pleases, and leaves you struggling to keep up with it, but somehow, you know this is the truth. There are no details to confirm it, but it  _ feels _ real. Feels like the right thing to say.   
  
“Can I tell you something?” Rogers asks, gentle in a way that makes your chest hurt. “About you?”

This was bound to happen. Rogers trying to jog your memory, or hold onto the shadow of who you were before, and you should say no, say you don’t want to hear it, but—

You nod, slow and jerky.

Maybe your head won’t be such a mess if he gives you something to go off of, even the smallest detail.

“I wasn’t with you, but I know you saw it when it came out. Went with some girl,” Rogers explains. “Anyway, you sang that for about a week straight. We had these neighbors, the Gillespies, and you just about drove them nuts, but they had a few grandkids who liked your singing, so they never said much. Told me not to tell you, but…” he shakes his head with the ghost of a smile on his lips, something distant and wistful in the bottom of his eyes. “Well, looks like I broke my promise.”

It’s vague, like staring through a foggy window. You recall the smell of rosy perfume, a mop of curly red hair, and soft hands tugging you forward away from the ticket booth, the waxy taste of lipstick in your mouth. The rest is even more incoherent, but it doesn’t feel wrong.

At this point, it would be foolish to think he’s telling you anything but the truth.

You work your jaw, barely noticing the way he’s moved closer, the way your steps have synced up. “Just because I remember something doesn’t mean I’m the guy you knew,” you say, but there’s no malice behind it. It’s just the truth. “Doesn’t mean he’s coming back.”   
  
“I know,” Rogers says, and he says it with so much conviction, you almost believe he believes it. “I know that, and that’s...not what I want. That’s too much to ask of you.”

It surprises you. You expected the way he insisted on the helicarrier, but maybe that was to bring you back from the edge, maybe that was a last resort because he was so sure you were both going to—

You turn to face him, slowing to a stop. “Then what’s the right thing to ask me?” you ask.

Rogers is streaked in dusky purples and oranges, hair turned burnished bronze. He looks toward the horizon, then back to you. “I don’t know,” he answers. “I guess I’m still trying to figure that out.”   
  
You open your mouth to speak, but Rogers beats you to it.

“I don’t know what to call you,” he says.   
  
“Neither do I,” you say, and that just makes him look grave, as grave as you feel, so you say, “But I’ll think of something.”

That’s a lie. You know you won’t think of a name. You can’t think of yourself as anyone. So, why would you say so at all?   
  
Why would you try to reassure him?   
  
-

The sun is scorching against the back of your head on the slow trek back to the cabin, and mingled with the lingering chill, it makes you feel strange, almost feverish.

Rogers is mostly silent, but it’s not uncomfortable. He’s not at ease, but he’s not quite on guard either. You aren’t sure what to make of that.

You think about what he told you, about the half-formed memory you recalled, now unfolding even further. A pair of soft hands. A hot rush of want.

You liked girls. You liked them a lot, you think. Liked touching them and kissing them and feeling their weight in your lap, their deft fingers unbuttoning your shirt or your trousers and oh, you can remember what it is to want, too. Your body remembers. Your body would crave it, and now it feels cut loose from it, completely useless.

Sex never mattered to you. It was something intrinsically human, unavailable for you. You had— _ have _ no indulgences, but you did once. 

You wanted and were wanted in return. You think girls liked you. You think it wasn’t just girls who liked you, because the dark taste of sweat caught in the hollow of a man’s throat feels just as right. The scratch of stubble between your legs. The hard plane of a chest beneath your hands (both flesh), a heartbeat against your palm. 

It turns to the flash of Rogers’ exposed stomach, all ivory skin and a faint trail of blond hair. You wonder what he would have done if you’d reached out and splayed your palm there. Felt the heat coming off his skin. Would his breath hitch? Would he tense up under your touch? Would he flush with it. Something deep inside of you says  _ yes _ .

You force the thought away. Choke it down when your insides twist almost painfully. You won’t think about it anymore. Rogers never mentioned a romantic relationship, he said you were friends.  _ Friends _ . Nothing more.

But is that the truth?

You clench your jaw hard enough for it to hurt and walk in front of him once you reach the stairs. “You can call me James,” you mutter, and walk up, not waiting for him to respond.

-

James. 

_ James, James, James. _

You test it silently on your lips. It doesn’t feel right on your tongue, but it doesn’t feel wrong either.

-

It’s cool in the cabin, which seems to be a drafty old thing, cold air caught in the bones of it, constantly wheezing and creaking.

Wilson and Natalia are awake, sat on the sofa and absorbed in a conversation you only catch a snatch of before it ceases and they turn to you at the same time, as perplexed by the fact that you’re still here as you are.

You walk past them quickly, before they can ask you any questions. Natalia follows you with her eyes as you make a sharp turn down the hall, out of sight. You hear Rogers walking inside, the door shutting behind him and then Wilson asking, “Becoming one with nature?”

They care for each other. It’s obvious. What’s not obvious is  _ how _ they care for each other, but that shouldn’t matter to you. You shouldn’t think about it.

Suddenly you’re upstairs, shutting yourself in the darkness of the linen closet and taking sharp, ragged breaths, fists clenched at your sides. Your heart is pounding like you’re being hunted. Hummingbird wings against your ribcage. Blood too hot in your veins.

It’s nothing, you remind yourself. You’re remembering what it’s like to want and Rogers—he was  _ right there _ , standing in front of you, making your fingers itch to touch and you—you must be getting him mixed up with someone else. Maybe it was a blurry face from decades ago, someone long dead, but—

But.

Something dark and growling, deep in the pits of you is buzzing, saying  _ this was yours,  _ and maybe it still can be.

-

You steady your breathing and will the heat under your skin to cool. Somehow, nothing’s happened between your legs. Maybe it’s been too long, and your body needs time to recalibrate, to relearn its familiar rhythm.

The door, thankfully, doesn’t creak when you open it. You keep your ears open, scan your eyes over your surroundings as you walk.

Downstairs, it’s silent. You step toward the window to find Natalia, Wilson, and Rogers talking in the driveway. They all look tense. Natalia’s keys are in her hand, and then Wilson is leaving with her. He says something to Rogers, something you can’t hear, and then he’s sliding into the passenger seat. Rogers leans into his open window, just for a moment before he taps the roof of the car twice, takes a step back.

The car starts and heads forward, rocks crackling under the wheels. Rogers watches it until it’s almost out of sight, and then he’s coming back toward the cabin. He catches your gaze through the window, and you resist the urge to look away, watch him until he gets close, and then you move away, stride for the kitchen and find the half-filled pot of coffee still on.

There’s one mug left, made up of chipped blue enamel. It makes a familiar clink when you set it down, makes a familiar sight when you pour the coffee into it, but you can’t place why it’s familiar. You have a funny feeling you won’t.

There’s so much you’ll never remember. Not everything will return in waves or through whispers, or suddenly be at the tip of your tongue. You’re already beginning to lose track of what you’ve already remembered, and you want to keep it all close to you. Want to make sure you don’t forget it.

You take a sip from the mug. The coffee isn’t watery like it was at the hospital. It’s dark and smooth, warming you from the inside out. You take a greedier drink from it, cup your right hand around the mug to feel the heat of it bleed into your skin.

Rogers shuts the front door with a soft click. It’s brighter inside now, and he’s backlit by the sun, casting strange shadows all over him. “Sam’s going back to DC for now,” he says, shrugs. “Nat’ll be back, she’s just taking care of a few things. I really couldn’t tell you, it’s all—”   
  
“Confidential,” you finish, watch him closely.

“Yeah, something like that,” Rogers says, nods his head down the hall. “I’m gonna be in the shower. Just yell if you need me.”

You knit your brows together. “I’ll be fine,” you assure him, dry. “Go. You stink.”   
  
It’s a poor attempt at a joke, but it makes him smile, if only slightly.

When he walks away, you rest the small of your back against the counter. You hear the door to the first floor bathroom open and shut, and then the shower turns on.

You grit your teeth and slide back to your original spot in the breakfast nook, notebook still open.

-

The memories come to you easier this time.

You start with what you already remember, and divide it into sections. Memories of being the Winter Soldier, memories of being Barnes.

You write down everything you remember about the Bear Pit, and then being waterboarded. Being hosed. Natalia. Yelena, digging the bullet from her side. The Chair. The vault. Your handlers. It’s all in bullet points, just enough to jog your memory. The thought of writing out the details makes your head swim, so you don’t bother.

The other memories, those are preferable. Those are easier to stomach.

You scrawl down the memory of your sister, try to recall the day in the photo booth, and it takes time, but you find you’re able to do it. You remember the taste of the ocean on your tongue, the cry of seagulls, remember Rebecca grabbing your hand in both of hers and dragging you forward toward the balloon darts stand, prepared to burn away whatever was in your pockets in her attempts to win a prize.

You looked back, sun-blind, and dragged a gangly body forward by his shirtfront shouting  _ c’mon, get the lead out of your pants! _

You popped each balloon with perfect efficiency, until the man running the stand handed over the bear Rebecca had been hankering for. There was a clap on your shoulders, two hands shaking them, and someone said  _ well done, soldier  _ and the air around you hissed, sharp and cold—

You squeeze your eyes shut, shake it away. That’s not possible. You were untouched by HYDRA here. Elastic and young, with no blood on your hands. There were no handlers.

_Think_ , you tell yourself sternly, and run the memory back. Hands on your shoulders, long and bony, a voice saying _hey, Buck,_ _I bet you’re too chicken to go on the Thunderbolt._

You turned around, and the smudged face came into view, blue eyes and a sunburnt nose, freckles that always appeared in the summer. There was no feverish rash or grey, sallow skin or glazed expression. He was warm and alive, hair lighter even than usual.

You hate how easy it is to see every version of him lining, blurring together. Rogers as a child, then as the same scrawny bag of bones just a few years later—all snide remarks and slow smiles and a big broken nose, and then him as he is now, big and broad, but ultimately, at his roots, the same.

The same hands. The same eyes, steady and sure and focused on you. You feel the same tug in the waking world as you do in your memories, no matter how old you are.

Buck, he called you. Rebecca called you Bucky, too, you think. Maybe a few others did too, but you remember other names now. James and Jim, Barnes and Sarge, Jamie and Yasha—

It hits hard like a punch to the gut. The name on someone’s lips, either gentle or firm or some combination of the two.

You remembered her in a blur, in a series of smudges, but now it’s clear. You had a mother.

If you think hard enough, you can remember her face. First still round with youth, and then older, sharper, with lines around dark eyes that kept their youth. You had the same idle, overworked hands and the same dimple in your chins. The same dark, wavy hair. You think she might have taught you everything you knew, and then some. Gave you her stubbornness and the fire in the bottom of a pair of eyes you got from a father you barely knew.

She taught you to speak, to put a name to everything the moment you could point it out. She had taken you just outside, and here, you’re so young she’s carrying you on her hip. Her voice is kind and gentle in the way anyone would speak to a child, and a finger pointing at whatever word comes from their—her mouth.  _ Sky, sun, grass, tree, cloud _ . Then pointing at her own face.  _ Nak, jak, kan, dand, muj _ . Teaching you to count in two different languages, making both a part of you, and it  _ is _ a part of you.

You had thought the language irrelevant, wondered why your handlers would bother instilling it in your head, but it was never them. This has always been yours. Etched into your brain. Etched into your heart. When you were very young, you think you lived in a matchbox of an apartment, slept squished between her and your father until it was abruptly just you, her, and a bassinet in a new tenement not so long later.

You remember looking over the bassinet to see who was inside. To see the little pink, screaming bundle with a tuft of dark hair. When you moved to put a hand over her mouth, slender fingers wrapped around your wrist and your mother had said  _ ah-ah, don’t do that, be nice to her, chavo _ . The hand guided yours to smooth over the baby’s head gently. Someone told you to shush her and say  _ it’s okay _ and  _ don’t cry _ and  _ don’t cry, Rebecca _ .

You did as you were told. Rebecca stopped crying. Your mother said you were a good brother.

For less than a moment, her name doesn’t come to you, but then you realize Rogers said it at the hospital—Winnie. 

Winifred. Rebecca called her Mama. You called her Ma, and she called you Yasha. She called you Jamie, too, but thinking of that hurts less, somehow. Yasha feels familiar, feels right. It’s wrapped in something like warmth, something you can’t put a name to.

However, you had shaped the name around your lips long after that. Introduced yourself with the name to little girls with sharp, curious eyes. You take a steadying sip from your coffee, rapidly cooling. How long have you been sitting here, wrapped in your thoughts?

You’d might as well write it all down now.

\- 

The shower shuts off by the time you finish the third page, all in handwriting that’s beginning to feel easier with every word you’ve scrawled down. Your eyes ache. A headache, sharp and stabbing, has begun to press on your temples, and you rub them slowly, hoping for the pain to fade.

You’re still so tired. Your bones are creaky with it. You didn’t sleep much to begin with, and now it seems that’s all you want to do. Sleep is good, isn’t it? Heals the body. Heals the mind. Maybe it’s the right decision after all.

Besides, if you sleep, you’ll be mostly undisturbed. No Rogers, no memories, no thoughts moving at a mile a minute.

You shut the book, using the pen as a bookmark, and slide it into the bookshelf. You’d rather not have Rogers look at it, whether he does it intentionally or not. At least you know where it is. At least you know that, for all intents and purposes, it’s yours.

It only takes a moment to draw all the curtains in the living room, and it’s as you turn the lamps on that you see Rogers from the bottom of the stairs, walking across the hall to his room. His dirty clothes are in one hand, and the other is holding his towel—pale yellow—in place on his hips.

You look away quickly. You ignore the hot, harried stir in your gut, and walk away before he notices you.

Sitting heavily on the sofa, you unlace your boots with a sense of relief. Wiggle your toes in your socks. You didn’t take them off last night. You weren’t sure whether you were going to run or not. Weren’t sure if you felt safe or not.

You still don’t feel safe, but you know there are worse places to be locked up.

-

The sofa isn’t so bad. It’s softer than the one in Rogers’ apartment, softer than the tub, but it takes forever for you to fall asleep, facing the cushions, giving the illusion of it in case Rogers comes back.

He doesn’t, thankfully. Not for a while. By the time you hear his footsteps descending the stairs, you’re already at the edge of drifting off.

-

You slip in and out of unconsciousness for a long, long while. It’s not unlike being drugged. Body floppy and useless, thoughts shifting into incoherence, forming and dissipating so quickly you can’t keep up with them.

A few low sounds creep out of your throat but you’re able to jolt yourself awake before they can form into words or screams. You dream of The Bear Pit again, of lying back on the cot or struggling to climb out using only your right arm, fingers curling into the craggy walls—sweating from head to toe, cursing as you fell again, curled on the filthy floor in a feverish haze.

You dream of other things, too, but they’re impossible to keep up with. Still muddled up in your faulty brain. You can hear voices somewhere. No, just one voice, but whoever it is isn’t talking to you. They’re—

“...asleep. Yeah, I’m sure, it’s been hours,” Rogers is saying, hushed. “I already said I’d let you know.”

The room is soaked in early evening light, and from the corner of your eye, you can see Rogers in the kitchen, rummaging through the cabinets quietly with a flip phone tucked between his ear and shoulder. He’s nodding, brows knit together. He looks frustrated, restless.

You shut your eyes again. You’d rather him not notice you’re awake yet.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Rogers continues. “How did you know my...? Nevermind, I don’t think I wanna know. Thanks, Nat. I know. I’ll see you soon.”

You hear him flip the phone shut, hear him open the fridge and huff before saying  _ figured _ , and shutting it. You choose then to sit up, to roll your neck on your shoulders. When you run your palms over your face, you take a moment to breathe, to get your bearings before you set your arms down.

“Hey, you’re awake,” Rogers says, careful, and you look his way. He’s still in his pajamas, looking slightly better than he did this morning. “You feeling okay?”

Your thoughts are still disjointed, words jumbled up behind your teeth, but your body feels looser. Some of the aches are gone. The pressure in your head is gone. When you glance at the clock, you find it’s five-thirty. Ten hours of sleep, most of it uninterrupted.

You tilt your head back and forth. “I’m alive,” you say. “Mostly.”

That makes Rogers smile. A small, genuine thing that crinkles at the corners of his eyes. It makes your chest hurt. A sharp, stabbing twinge. “About all you could hope for sometimes.”

You aren’t sure how to respond to that, but you don’t think about it too much, because Rogers is stepping closer. “Nat’s on her way back,” he says, “Bringing some clothes and other stuff. Her words, not mine.”

“Wilson’s not with her?” you ask.

Rogers shakes his head. “Sam’s back home for now,” he says, opens his mouth and closes it before continuing. “I’d tell you more, but—”   
  
“Classified,” you say, your voice in shards. “I get it.”

“It’s not classified,” Rogers clarifies. “It’s just…” he works his jaw, drums his fingers on the handle of the refrigerator. “It’s just sensitive information.”

It goes unsaid, but you know Rogers won’t answer because he doesn’t want you to know where Wilson is. At least he has preservation instincts when it comes to other people. When it comes to his team, his friends, but doesn’t seem to save much for himself.

Which is why he’s allowed himself to stay locked up in the middle of nowhere with you, of all people. He knows what you’re capable of, has seen it firsthand. Maybe he thinks he’s minimizing damage by staying here with you. Maybe this isn’t a safehouse at all.

“I get it,” you repeat, and rise up from the couch. “I’ll be back.”   
  
Rogers only watches you go. As you walk upstairs, you hear him rummaging through the kitchen again. There should be non-perishable food somewhere in the cabinets, and possibly more if there’s a basement.

You try not to focus on the thought of that, of the hollowness in your stomach, as you bathe in hot, shallow water. You scrub the smell of sleep and sweat and hospital from your skin, lather your hair up with shampoo and conditioner that smells cloyingly sweet. It makes your hair soft and slippery. Easy to touch, barely needing to be combed.

You dry your hair off with a scratchy towel as the tub drains, wipe the water and remaining suds from your body.

This time, your reflection doesn’t look as tired. The dark circles have faded only slightly, but the pallor to your skin is the same. The miserable twist to your mouth is the same. The scars around your left arm look even darker and far more irritated from scrubbing at the skin. You couldn’t be sure on when to stop, since you barely feel anything there. Just the faintest prickles of pain.

Your body is a jagged patchwork of scars. It’s difficult for you to look at, but you keep your eyes forward. Try to take it all in. Memorize it so it doesn’t feel like a piece of machinery separated from you. You still need to convince yourself it belongs to you.

You run your flesh fingers over your stubbled cheeks, over the dimple in your chin, over the faint scar on the side of your throat, the dip in your chest, which is now smattered with a bit of hair. 

It was almost always shaved before, since the doctors had to perform an ECG after each wipe, had to make sure your heart was running correctly. The last thing HYDRA wanted was The Winter Soldier dying of cardiac arrest. The thought is almost funny, dying on them in such a mundane way, and out of sheer spite.

Your hips are sharp, and jut like your ribs do. You look like a stray dog, scrounging around alleyways for scraps.  _ Like Laika the dog _ , you think. Dragged away from the snow and forced into a little metal prison chamber. But while Laika was jettisoned into the stars and burnt up, you were chained to the ground, left to freeze and freeze and freeze.

You shut your eyes tight, just for a moment, and then open them. The light in the bathroom is warm, rife with lingering steam. You aren’t shivering. There’s no slush dripping off of you. You’re safe.

As safe as you can be.

Another glance in the mirror. You can see your face better without your hair in the way, so you push it further back. You think you were handsome once. The ghost in the film reels and the photos at the Smithsonian are enough evidence to know that. You knew how to talk to whoever you wanted to get whatever you wanted. Cheaper groceries, some extra work, sex. It didn’t matter. It was all a way to survive. Basic human needs.

That leaves the thought of Rogers with his towel on his hips stuck in your head again. The exposed flat of his stomach your fingers itched to touch.

Maybe he would have let you do it. Let your touch linger while his breath hitched under your palm. Would he have let you pull him closer, feel the heat of his body against yours, steal some of it for yourself?

It’s not as difficult as you thought it would be, imagining it. You can easily picture slotting your body with his. The soft pout of his mouth against yours, as hungry as you. His body under yours or maybe yours under his.

Your breath is quick and labored, shuddering out of you while your heart pounds. You swallow hard and focus back on the mirror, on the flush high in your face before you look down.

You’re at full mast, rubbing against the towel in a way that makes you want to shiver. Pleasure is normal, both with a partner and without. You know that, but it’s just not something you associate with yourself. It’s not something you ever had time for, but before,  _ before _ , you know you did. You had to restrain yourself from thinking about it in the woods.

Was it ever with Rogers? Or was he just someone you wanted and couldn’t have?

You try to remember as you curl the fingers of your right hand around yourself, breath catching hard. It’s almost painful, the sudden ache, barely easing as you stroke and seeming to worsen. Your body’s been neglected. It hasn’t felt anything close to pleasure in decades. You watch the movement of your hand, the way you go from soft and flaccid to half-hard and aching, for only a moment before your eyes fall shut, into a soothing darkness that doesn’t last long.

Remembering is useless. You’re chasing after the threads of threads, seeing only the faintest flashes of Rogers, and know they aren’t senseless thoughts. 

One is of him before the serum, like the photos in the exhibit. He’s straddling you. His face is close and his breath is hot. There’s an urgency to it when you kiss him here, like you can’t possibly do it enough.

There’s another of him spread out beneath you in a smoky flat, finally adjusted to his big, new body. There’s a different sort of need here. One you can feel in your teeth, in your bones, behind your eyes.

Both memories feel urgent, tinged with longing, but you still suck your lower lip between your teeth, bite down until it hurts as your body knits itself tighter and tighter.

You nearly snarl when you can’t scrounge up anything else, when those glimpses fade. They just keep melting away into blackness, turning back to this morning, to what could have happened had you swallowed your fear. 

You wonder what would happen if Rogers opened the unlocked door now, if he caught you like this. He wouldn’t stay. He’d slam the door shut. Maybe he’d avoid you for a while, and you’d know exactly why. Maybe he’d talk to Natalia when she arrived, but disappear soon after. Lock his own door to—

It’s senseless, but it still sends you over the edge. 

It leaves a breathless, pained sound punching out of you as you spill over your fist in hot ropes that leave you doubling over, clutching the sink and trying your best not to break the porcelain under your grip as you push through the aftershocks, sweating and shaking with it. Your eyes are stinging, your knees are buckling, your heart is pounding so hard it hurts.

You swallow down a breath. Then another. Then another before you finally open your eyes.

There’s not much of a flush to your skin, just a faint pinkness on your throat and your cheeks. It wasn’t you who was the full body blusher, then. The thought of it being Rogers is almost enough to make you want to touch yourself again, but you resist the urge. You don’t want to make the prickle running up through your abdomen any worse.

You clean your hands and dry them on your towel before you hang it up. You put your old clothes back on for now, even though they make you feel less refreshed, and you lean against the door to pull your socks back on.

Somehow, your head feels clearer. The veil in front of your eyes has lifted, and your headache isn’t so bad. Your body feels looser, like you’ve stretched your stiffest joints until they popped. 

You take another breath, slower this time, and push your hair out of your eyes. And then you open the door, force yourself back downstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SPOILER: while describing his time in the bear pit, bucky says he thinks a guard may have wanted a sexual favor from him after sneaking food to him, but nothing happens because he kills the guard during an escape attempt. there will be no mention of this encounter in the following chapters and absolutely no sexual abuse of any sort will take place in the fic.
> 
> Медвежья яма = bear pit
> 
> Nak = Nose
> 
> Jak = Eye
> 
> Kan = Ear
> 
> Dand = Teeth
> 
> Muj = Mouth
> 
> also, laika the dog makes me so so sad. never talk to me about laika because i WILL cry.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: please see end notes for warnings that could contain spoilers.

As you step through the threshold leading to the living room and the kitchen, an acrid smell has your nose wrinkling up, mouth twisting into a grimace.

“Look, I’m not much of a cook,” Rogers says around a mouthful of whatever he’s made. “But it’s all I found. Eat as much as you want.”

You don’t care if it’s burnt. It has to be better than whatever slurry was pumped into your stomach whenever you were taken out of cryo. You rub absently at the faint scar, small and cavernous, beneath your shirt. It healed over the morning the Triskelion fell. Still ached faintly through the afternoon before you were too occupied to notice it.

There’s a plate on the table, piled high with pancakes that are slightly charred around the edges. There’s a bottle of syrup beside it, along with a fork and knife, a bottle of water.

You shrug. “Food is food,” you say instead of thanking him, and sit down.

It’s the truth. If you think hard enough, you know that food was rarely ever an indulgence.

Food always fell in the realm of  _ need _ , not  _ want _ . It was fuel. That was why your handlers— _ captors? _ —gave you the feeding tube, or the flavorless, tasteless slurry of nutrients.  _ A smell or a taste might bring back a memory, _ you recall someone explain.  _ The senses are sometimes stronger than the mind. _

This said was either to you or in your presence. You aren’t completely sure. But still, you think you had the same relationship with food before HYDRA.

“We didn’t have much,” you begin, and look at your plate, which is preferable to looking up at Rogers. “Did we.”

From the corner of your eye, you watch him lean back against the counter. You haven’t outright asked him anything. Not really. You allowed him to share something with you, but you haven’t  _ asked _ .

Rogers breathes out, slow and deep. “No,” he says. “No, we didn’t, but I think we were happy.”

_ Happy _ . That’s funny. A bitter, sharp sort of funny.

You look up when he says that, and follow him with your eyes as he steps closer, slides onto the bench opposite you. 

For a moment, you consider protesting but decide against it. You think you might be getting used to his presence. You’d rather he sat down, anyway. You don’t like being loomed over.

“Yeah,” you mutter. “I bet we were.”

Rogers says nothing. You cut into your stack of pancakes, stab a heaping helping onto your fork and take a bite. They’re a little burnt and too dry, sucking all the moisture out of your mouth. 

They taste terrible.

Despite this, you keep chewing. Food is food, and waste is waste.

Rogers watches you through it all, and you stare right back, finding something like longing in the bottom of his eyes. He wants to tell you everything. The words want to spill out of his mouth, unbidden. The lament of a shared life you can barely recall.

You uncap the bottle of syrup with a sticky click and squeeze it all over the stack, set it down with a dull thunk once you’re satisfied. “What?” you demand, mouth full. “I got something on my face?”

Your voice is becoming less of what it was trained to be. You were trained to sound toneless and cold, but cadences and affectations are being teased off your tongue. It may have been trained out of you, but it’s coming out in fits and starts.

Perhaps your memories are in the same predicament. Not gone, not lost. Just hidden.

Rogers’ mouth quirks up at the corner, just the slightest bit before it fades. His gaze flickers downward for only a moment, but then his eyes are back on yours. His eyes are blue, too, but a brighter shade than your own. Like a cornflower. 

“Nah,” he says quietly. “Nah, it’s nothing.”

You want to say  _ doesn’t seem like nothing _ , but you only hum and cut another wedge from your pancakes, making sure to soak them up in syrup this time.

It tastes better. It’s cloyingly sweet and sticky, but you don’t mind it so much. The persistent gnaw in your stomach is subsiding, even now, and you can think past the ache in your head.

“So, we scraped by,” you say, leaning back in your seat and setting the fork and knife down. You don’t want to make yourself sick, and if you take it slow, you could be full for the rest of the night. “How bad was it?”

Now, Rogers looks like he has no clue where to begin. You might have caught him off-guard, left him feeling turned around.

He flattens his mouth into a tight line and crosses his arms tightly. The sun has turned to a deep, buttery yellow, casting in stripes over his face. Warmth suits him. Suits him better than the cold blue dawn or the fluorescent glow of the hospital.

A shrug, a shake of the head. “I was worse off as a kid,” Rogers says. “Ma and I, we were the ones scraping by. Wore clothes until I couldn’t anymore. Lived off whatever we had. I think that’s why…” Something wistful flickers over his face. “I know that’s why you always asked me to come over. All of you.”

It doesn’t paint a picture in your mind, but it rings true, somewhere deep inside of you. 

“Saw a picture of you two in the museum,” you say. “You and Sarah. You were about...” you gesture a little lower than the table. “Yay big. Scrappy little shrimp.”

Rogers nods. “I know which one you mean. That’s actually a copy. They gave me the real one once I woke up. Think that was before I ever met you.”   
  
“Speaking of, that story plastered all over the place sounded like horseshit,” you say before you can stop yourself. “I know I didn’t meet you in a goddamn schoolyard.”

It’s not as if you can pull all the words back into your mouth. It’s not as if you can make Rogers unhear it.

Now, he knows you remember. Now, he—God, no, he’s not going to—

“James?” Rogers asks, voice raised.

The name sounds wrong in his mouth. It sounds so completely  _ wrong _ .

“I’m fine,” you snap, a hot burst of irritation tainting your not-so-foul mood. “I’m fine, my head’s just—” you shut your eyes, draw your hand in circles near your temple. “I’ve remembered things before. That’s all.”   
  
“Before,” Rogers echoes, wary. “Meaning—”   
  
“Meaning they wiped whatever it was.”

The air feels close and thick now. Everything you’ve eaten sits like a cinderblock in your stomach.

Your left leg is jumping, body feeling stiff and alert.

“You know, we don’t have to keep talking about this if you don’t want to,” Rogers says, trying his best to sound calm. Diffusing. His eyes are kind, patient. He’s much more careful than he is in your memories. “You’re in charge here. I mean it. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”   
  
You grit your teeth and try your damnedest to believe him. 

All you can do is nod, force yourself not to look away from him. You can’t help searching his face for something—a clue, for an answer, for the possibility that the man trapped somewhere in your thoughts, laid out on a drafty floor, flushed with want and looking at you with something like adoration isn’t just a fantasy, isn’t just something your mind conjured up.

Rogers looks prepared to speak, like maybe he knows what you’re thinking, like he can read it all over your face, but then a car door shuts outside and you both turn toward the sound.

You’re relieved for the interruption. 

Maybe he is, too.

-

The setting sun has caught on Natalia’s hair, but doesn’t quite soak into her the way it does to Rogers. She’s like you in that way, you think. Both of you were made for cool, sharp precision. The dark and the cold, the cover of night suits you both best.

You watch her from the window. She’s alone this time, and her movements are easy. No tails, no one watching her, no rush to her pace. She has a plastic bag in either hand, and she climbs the stairs almost silently.

She still moves gracefully, smoothly, like the girl you knew her as. Deft fingers curled around a barre, pointe shoes tied tightly on her feet.

Rogers opens the door just as she steps up onto the deck. “Miss me?” she asks Rogers as she walks in, mouth curled up ever so slightly at the corners. “I know you crash and burn when I’m not around.”

Rogers snorts softly. “Yeah, something like that,” he says wryly, but he looks at ease, broad shoulders drooping. The pinch between his brows has smoothed away. “What’s that?”   
  
“This,” Natalia begins, and hands one of the bags to Rogers. “Is for you. And this—” she tosses the other at you. You catch it easily. “Is for you. I guessed both your sizes.”

You look into the bag, taking note of the pack of t-shirts—both long and short sleeves—and underwear, the pair of jeans and sweatpants. You notice a pack of socks, a hairbrush, a black hoodie, and hair ties in there as well, 

It’s enough to last you a while. It’s enough to last you far too long, really, and now you can’t help wondering just how long you’re meant to stay here.

_ Is this place really for Rogers? _

“How did you know my shoe size?” Rogers asks, pulling out a pair of cheap-looking grey sneakers. He shakes his head. “You know what? Doesn’t matter. Thanks, Nat.”

Natalia shrugs. “It’s nothing,” she says. “Besides, you’re kind of in the middle of hiding from a group of Nazis that want to pick your brain apart.”

“Happens to the best of us,” you say, a poor attempt at a joke. 

They both turn to look at you, bewildered.

-

It’s not tense, not really, but it’s obvious Natalia didn’t just come by to drop off clothes and toiletries, and it becomes very obvious that she trusts you enough to let you know the basics of what’s happened since you got Rogers out of the hospital.

You lean your back against the kitchen counter, watching Natalia and Rogers do the same. There’s a steaming cup of smoky, spicy tea in Natalia’s hand that smells familiar. Not your preference, you think. Definitely hers. Rogers’ and your own are empty as you listen to her speak. Her voice is similar to yours, any identifiable quirks or cadences all but smoothed out.

Arrests are still happening. All over the country, and soon enough, according to her, all over the world. What remains of SHIELD, what remains of whoever is worth trusting, is taking care of it, along with the CIA.

Wilson isn’t in DC at all, apparently. He’s in New York, and possibly relocating there permanently. Rogers looks sour at that, and says so, but Natalia mentions that Wilson had said it was always in the cards for him, and he already had somewhere to stay.

You don’t know how true that is, and it doesn’t shake the irritation, the guilt off of Rogers, anyway.

“So, where is he now?” he asks.

“With friends,” Natalia says, purposely vague. “I was the one who saw him off, if that makes you feel any better.”   
  
Rogers shakes his head. “If that’s the case, I know he’s safe.”   
  
You’re no fool. You have an idea of where Wilson is, who may have picked him up, but you don’t let Rogers and Natalia catch onto that.

Natalia tilts her head at him, lips flattening into a tight line. She turns to you. “Дайте нам немного конфиденциальности,” she says.

You’re prepared to step out of the kitchen, but Rogers says, suspicious, “I thought we were all on the same page.”   
  
“We are,” Natalia says.

“So, what’s the point in keeping James in the dark?”   
  
“James,” Natalia echoes, looking back at you. “I think you feel about the same as I do about privacy, right?”

You stare back for a few seconds. “I’ll be upstairs,” you say, and push off the counter, turn the corner to the hallway.

Rogers and Natalia are silent as you walk upstairs, deliberately keeping your footsteps loud, letting them keep track of your path for a moment. You open Rogers’ door with a shrieking creak before you slam it shut. 

You don’t go inside. You lean against the banister carefully, allow your movements to become as liquid and silent as they were made to be, shutting your eyes so you can focus.

“So, James,” Natalia muses. “Who chose that?”

“He did, this morning,” Rogers says. “And just so you know, I don’t think he can hear us.”

Natalia hums. You can almost picture her leaning over the countertop now, still holding her mug in both hands. The smoky scent of lapsang souchong lingers in your nose.

“Do you really plan on staying here?” Natalia asks, low and serious.

The question hangs heavily in the air. You wonder what Rogers is thinking, what sort of look he has on his face. “I thought I was safe here,” he answers. 

It’s snappy, defensive. He’s gearing for a disagreement already, hackles rising.

“It’s my safe house, so you obviously are,” Natalia says. “But wouldn’t you rather be somewhere familiar? Sam’s probably at the Tower already. You’d be better off there, too, you know.”

“I’m not going to the Tower,” Rogers says, defiant. “And that’s final. Besides, I’m not afraid of—” a huff, sharp and irritated. “I’m not worried about HYDRA getting their hands on me if I can hold my own ground now. Don’t you think they’d expect me in Manhattan, anyway? I don’t think they’ll come sniffing around a cabin in the middle of nowhere.”   
  
“And while you’re right,” Natalia says. “It doesn’t make any sense for  _ you _ to stay here.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Rogers argues. “I’m not leaving him here on his own, so don’t even—”

For a moment, all you can hear is the creaks and groans of the cabin, mingled with Rogers’ heavy breathing.

“I just got him back,” he says quietly, so much so you have to strain your ears. “I just got him  _ back _ , Nat. I can’t lose him again.”

His voice wavers toward the end. It sucks all the air out of the room. 

“He saved my life,” Rogers continues fervently. “Twice. He pulled me from the river, he told us about Moros. He’s  _ remembering _ . He said so himself. I already told you back during the war Zola gave him his own version of the serum. That’s why he survived, and that’s why he’s getting his memories back so quickly. It has to be. Whatever conditioning HYDRA tried on him isn’t holding. Maybe it never did, and I think...he wants to remember. Even if he’s not...even if he’s not who I remember, that doesn’t matter. Hell, I’m not who  _ he _ remembers. So let me figure this out. If he wants to stick around, if he wants me to stick around, then I’ll try to do right by both of us, but that’s not involving going to the Tower. That’s not in the cards for either of us.”

You realize you’re gripping the banister tightly enough to turn your knuckles white. You force yourself to let go before it creaks, force yourself to listen past the blood rushing in your ears.

“You know, even before I saw him on the bridge, I didn’t want to work with SHIELD anymore,” Rogers admits. “I just wanted to...God, I wanted to go home but I had no idea where that was. I didn’t know what to do, so I picked up the shield. I came to DC, I tried to make it work, but every time we finished an op, I’d sit there telling myself, ‘I’m not doing this anymore.’ I’d say it every goddamn time, but I’d still show up. And now…” you can almost picture the rigidity of his body, the muscle pulsing in his jaw, and try not to question why it all comes to you so easily. “Now, I can’t help wondering how many times we’ve killed the wrong people, or went on an op for the wrong reasons.”

“Listen,” Natalia says, her tone is shifting now. Stripped raw and warm in a way that makes you want to stop listening. “And listen good. I’ve been wondering the same thing my entire life. It’s not easy, but you’ll get used to it. You’re gonna carry it around with you now, but not forever. You didn’t know.  _ Look _ at me, Steve. You didn’t know.”

It’s not meant for you, but the weight of Natalia’s words are like bullets, ripping through your insides.

If Rogers wonders the same thing, if he feels just as out of control, then aren’t your experiences similar in that way? If he’s capable of confusion, of regret, if he has the fear of what he’s done and hasn’t done under the thumb of people far more powerful than he is, why can’t you do the same?   
  
Rogers says nothing. Your neck prickles.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Natalia asks, and you know she’s referring to everything he said before.

Rogers breathes a laugh that isn’t a laugh. It’s bitter and miserable. “When was I supposed to?” he asks. “There were bugs all over my apartment, no privacy at the Triskelion, and, God, I don’t know how else to say it, Nat. We just weren’t close back then.”   
  
“I know,” Natalia says, almost regretful. “I know we weren’t.”

Somehow, you feel like you shouldn’t be listening in on this. It’s not a pressing, urgent feeling, but it leaves you wondering in the brief silence that follows. Leaves you wondering whether you should give them privacy at all.

“I know you don’t want to come back, but hear me out,” Natalia says. “It wouldn’t be long. It would be temporary. No one has to know you’re thinking about hanging it up. It can stay between us if that’s what you want.”   
  
“I got you and Sam,” Rogers murmurs. “That’s about the furthest my confidence can stretch. It’s not like I’d want to become a hermit or anything. I just need some time to think.”   
  
“Sounds like something an aspiring hermit would say,” Natalia teases, then adds, “I mean it, Steve. If you want to disappear—”   
  
“I can’t make you do that,” Rogers cuts in.

“You’re not making me do anything,” Natalia says. “Besides, at least I’ll be able to visit you wherever you go.”

The tension eases between them, just like that.

“Yeah,” Rogers says warmly, more at ease than he has been since he’s arrived at the cabin. You can hear the faint smile in his voice. He’s comfortable with her. Closer to her than you initially thought. “Yeah, that’ll be nice. We could always finish Star Trek.”   
  
“If you promise to stay awake this time,” Natalia says.

“You’re never gonna let me live that down, are you?” Rogers shoots back, then breathes out, slow and measured. “I’m gonna go tell him he has the all-clear.”

You take the opportunity to quietly open the bedroom door, just large enough of a gap for you to slip through. You shut it silently and sit on the edge of the bed Wilson was using. It’s expertly made, all sharp corners and straight lines, unlike Rogers’. The pillow is flat and rumpled, the sheet uneven, the blanket pulled all the way up. It seems like he made it in a rush and never returned to it.

It’s hard not to wonder why you can so easily picture the way he goes about things. Sure, it’s simply getting a feel for him. Sure, you’re good at reading him because that’s what you  _ do _ , but you already know you knew him well once. Like the back of your hand. The beat of your heart.   
  
Maybe you still do.

You can hear his footsteps getting closer, and he knocks before he opens the door, hand lingering on the knob. He’s slouched and easy despite the faint line of tension running through his expression.   
  
“Sorry about that,” Rogers says, and you can see that he means it. “If you wanna come back down, you’re welcome to.”   
  
You shrug.

“Hey, you know, you can probably take the other room,” Rogers suggests. “I doubt Nat’s gonna mind. No idea how long we’ll be here, anyway.”

That thought is far from comforting.

“Yeah,” you mutter. “Sure.”   
  
You’re not accepting the offer, nor are you declining it, but you’re considering it. There’s only one window in this bedroom, and only one in Natalia’s, offering barely any visibility for anyone to see inside.

That could be enough. It’s more cover than the living room, surely preferable to the bathroom. Your neck is still a little stiff from that, thighs tight and uncomfortable.

Evidently, your response is more than enough for Rogers, because his face softens in measures, starting with his eyes. You’re getting used to his presence, you think. He’s not insufferable. Not yet. He hasn’t pushed you in any way, and he’s being careful, being...kind. 

You’re not used to kindness, almost feel like you’re unable to recognize it, but you see it in him. See that he means well, and a part of you knows it, too, now that you’ve gotten an idea of where he stands. 

He’s not forcing you to do anything, or hoping that you’ll be who he lost, and that quiets the growling anxiety scratching at the inside of your chest. It grounds you, makes you feel like some small part of this situation makes a bit of sense.

-

“You sure you don’t want to stay?” Rogers asks Natalia as she walks to her car—a different one, this time. A sleek, black two-seater.

You’re trailing behind them, eyes adjusting to the growing darkness. There’s a chill creeping back into the air, and you can tell it’s only going to get colder. It could get drafty in the living room, too, and the already cold porcelain of the tub could be bone-chilling.

So, you’re back to considering the alternatives.   
  
“And what?” Natalia says wryly, boots crunching the dirt beneath her. “Watch scary movies and braid each other’s hair?”

“I don’t have much hair to braid,” Rogers shoots back, a half-smile on his lips. “But we can make it work.”   
  
Natalia glances in your direction. “You still have a hand for it, right, James?” she asks.

The name doesn’t sound right in her mouth either, you notice.

You shrug. “I’d have to wrack my brain for it,” you say, and Rogers looks so goddamn confused it’s almost funny. “Long story,” you tell him.   
  
“Sounds about right,” Natalia agrees, then leans up to kiss him on the cheek, just as he leans down to accept it. “I’ll call when I land.”

She doesn’t get in the car right away, even when Rogers walks away. She nods her head at you, and you take that as a cue to come close, hands stuffed deep inside your pockets.

You’re tugged even closer. Her lips are right at your ear when she says, so quietly you almost miss it, “Don’t hurt him.”

It takes you by surprise, and you pull back, all too aware of her hand on your right bicep, holding you in place.

You were expecting a threat. Expecting her to make you promise something else, and you aren’t even sure what else she’d ask of you. She knows you won’t turn now, knows you won’t harm Rogers, so she must mean—

She arches her brow at you, waiting for an answer

Despite yourself, you nod, eyes fixed on hers.

You realize you mean it. You don’t want to hurt him. Not really.

It must show, because Natalia releases you with a nod of her own, and gets into the car.

There’s a strange, sinking feeling in your gut when she drives away. You feel drawn tight and nervous, too exposed, like thousands of eyes are on you, but when you turn around, it’s only Rogers, still standing exactly where you left him.   
  
“What was that about?” he asks.

You shake your head. “Not important,” you say, not caring if he doesn’t believe you. “Come on, Rogers, it’s fucking freezing out here.”

A conflicted look passes over Rogers’ face, but he follows you inside, eyes burning a hole through you all the while.

-

Inside, the wind stops rushing through your ears and you feel a little more steady. Natalia’s presence wasn’t unwelcome, but seeing her in the same room with Rogers was jarring. The cornerstones of a half-remembered life overlapping before your eyes.

“So,” Rogers begins, locking the door with a series of clicks. “You know Natasha better than I thought.”

It’s like he saw the cogs turning in your head, and jumped at the chance to ask. It makes you feel exposed all over again, because he hasn’t outright asked what you remember up until this point.

The Red Room is difficult to think about. Not because you can’t remember it, but because you can.

You can see it all in striking detail, smell the scent of peonies that persisted throughout the foyer, feel the burn in your muscles from training girl after girl, see their cold, stony expressions, and their lithe, little forms barely flinching from the kickback of a handgun.

Each of the children return in snatches—Tanya, who was thirteen when you arrived, strong and stoic, but deemed too weak after less than a month. Olga, who was suddenly too sick to train, struck dead by a stubborn illness. Irina and Katya, a set of twins who disappeared into the snowy tundra and never returned. Violetta, who you stole from her cradle in Veliky Novgorod. Klara and Evelina, another set of sisters who were as deadly as they were trained to be before they died in a firefight. Liliya, who was too young to be trained, carted off to some other facility you were unfamiliar with. 

Then, of course, there was Yelena and Natalia.

You say none of this, despite it all wanting to spill from your lips in droves. Perhaps you’ll write it all down one day, try to fit the jagged pieces together. It might be enough to fill an entire notebook.

“Perceptive,” you say, sardonic. “What gave me away?”

Rogers huffs through his nose, not quite a laugh. “Just seems like you guys have some history,” he says, and leans against the wall beside the door, forcing himself to be casual. It doesn’t work. You can almost see the tension knotting his body up.   
  
“Definitely not the history you’re thinking,” you say. “I met her in 1989.”

Rogers blinks. “Nat was born in ‘84,” he says slowly.   
  
“I’m aware,” you say, and it only makes Rogers look even more bewildered than before. You shake your head before you add, “It’s her story to tell. Besides, I’m not what you’d call a reliable source.”

With that, you turn to leave, but Rogers says, “Wait.”   
  
So, you wait. You turn around slowly.

“Are you sleeping upstairs tonight?” he asks.

You meet his eyes, feeling strangely on the spot. “I’ll try to,” you answer. “Goodnight, Rogers.”   
  
It’s not that you’re angry or upset, but you need to be alone for a while. You need time to gather your thoughts.

“Yeah,” Rogers says distantly, and you feel his eyes on you as you grab the plastic bag from the floor, as you swipe the pen and notebook you claimed from the bookshelf. “Yeah, goodnight, James.”

You say nothing, and make your way back upstairs.

-

The bed has been stripped and the sheets look new, meaning Natalia knew she was leaving and didn’t plan on returning.

You don’t think too much when you grab the green quilt from the linen closet, the same one you woke up with, when you leave it folded on the bed for later use. A part of you considers grabbing sheets and pillow cases, too, but you don’t.

You’re beginning to notice that everything you do has a bite of discomfort to it. You’re no psychiatrist, but you think it might have something to do with never feeling quite comfortable in the first place, even before HYDRA. You think you may have been the type to take what you could get, which isn’t surprising. Rogers said you weren’t well-off, anyway. Either one of you.

You change out of your dirty clothes and into the long sleeved shirt, the boxers, the sweatpants that were selected for you, and decide that despite the fact that the pants are a little loose, they’re much more comfortable than the filthy jeans you’ve been stuck in for the last few days. You’ll have to wash those clothes soon, you think, but for now, you leave everything in a pile in the corner of the room.

A scrap of paper falls from your jeans, and you knit your brows together before you remember why it’s there.

You snatch it up and sit down on the edge of the bed, unfolding it slowly and reading it over again.

If you think hard enough, you can recall what it felt like to be a child. If you think hard enough, you can feel the heat of the sun on your back or a harsh winter wind gusting in your face, a snowball hitting you in the side of the head and then the icy weight of one in your own hand as you launched it forward and hit someone directly between the eyes. It didn’t feel bad. It felt like you were having fun.

Most times, it felt as though you were always what you were made into. Like there was nothing but the slow, creeping sensation of waking from cryo and then being stored away all over again, but here, now, this memory feels real. Real like the clothes on your back and the air in your lungs.

Your thoughts are cut short by a knock at the door, a tentative thing.

“Hey,” Rogers says, muffled. “I’m gonna turn in myself, so if you need me, I’ll be across the hall.”   
  
You say nothing. You’d rather him think you’re asleep and leave you be.

When you look down, you can see the outline of his shoes through the gap in the door. He lingers for three, four, five seconds before he walks away, shutting his door behind him.

You release a breath you didn’t realize you were holding, and lie back against the pillows.

-

For a while, your eyes scan over that ripped out page, torn at one corner, and for a while you read over what you’ve already written in the notebook. It all makes your head hurt, leaves you with a sharp, stubborn ache stabbing through your left eye, but you persist through it

You occasionally glance at the clock and find that the hours are slipping by. Eight-thirty, nine-thirty, ten-thirty.

At some point, you fall asleep.

You fall asleep, and you dream.

-

Once again, it’s senseless, but at least you have some idea of where it’s taking place, and you know it by the scent of peonies.

Here, you aren’t dressed in your gear. You had to have the appearance of a teacher in the Red Room. A wool turtleneck itched against your skin. Your pants were heavy, dark, and durable. Your boots were tight on your feet.

_ “Watch closely, devochki,” you tell Yelena, Katya, and Violetta as you disassemble a gun as slowly as you can manage, and then reassemble it, then do it again, faster and faster. “Watch closely.” _

_ You taught this lesson countless times by this point, and most of the girls took to it like fish to water, especially Natalia, so of course, the final three are anxious to get it right, to be even faster, to be the best. Yelena is ten, Katya is eleven, Violetta is eight. _

_ So, their eyes followed your every move with rapt attention, save for Katya, who keeps glancing nervously toward the corner of the room. You finally set the gun down, fully assembled, and lock eyes with Yelena. _

_ “Now,” you begin, sliding the gun toward her. “It’s your turn.” _ _   
_ _   
_ _ Her eyes are dark and determined. She squares her shoulders and lifts the gun, and then freezes. _

_ “Stupid girl,” Madame B hisses. Yelena flinches like she’s been slapped. “Do as he says!” _

_ When you look up, Katya and Violetta are gone. They’ve disappeared from either side of Yelena in the blink of an eye, and she looks incredibly alone, her dark eyes focused on the weapon in her hands. _

_ You remember this, remember this moment clearly, but the dream is becoming senseless and confusing, taking on a life of its own.  _

_ Yelena is meant to take the gun apart. She’s meant to take it apart and put it back together again with skill she didn’t realize she had until that moment, but she hasn’t moved a muscle. She’s frozen in place, shivering. It’s cold, suddenly. So, so cold. Her breath is puffing out in clouds in front of her, fingertips turning blue. _

_ Madame B clicks her tongue irritably. “Enough of this,” she says and walks out of the room, high heels clacking against the polished floors. _

_ Yelena meets your eyes, and there’s fear behind her gaze but you aren’t sure why. _

_ Not until you watch your hand move of its own accord and grab another pistol on your belt.  _

_ “Forgive me, Lenochka,” you say before you click the safety off, before you aim the gun between her eyes. _

And then you wake with a heaving gasp, shaking all over, as phantom gunfire echoes through your ears.

It was a dream. Only a dream. You know exactly what happened that day, and it wasn’t  _ that _ .

Still, you can’t bring yourself to move. Your mouth tastes of bile. Your eyes are burning, but you refuse to open them. You half-expect to see Yelena standing at the foot of your bed, still holding the gun, but there’s no one, thankfully. The bedside lamp is still on, and according to the clock, it’s half past three in the morning.

You toss your notebook to the floor, unfold the quilt, and turn the light off. You have the opportunity to fall asleep again, and you know that if you dream again, you’ll try to jolt yourself awake. You’ll try to change something, if possible. That would be nice. A mercy, even.

But even when you drift off again, you’re still unable to shake the sight of Yelena staring down the barrel of your gun, and then it’s not Yelena at all. It’s Katya, it’s Violetta, it’s Olga, Tanya, Natalia, and then it’s Rebecca, and you can’t bear to sleep anymore.

You tear the quilt back from your body with a snarl and storm out of the room, down the stairs. You need to breathe, need to get out of your head and—

You freeze when you see Rogers sitting on the sofa, holding half a deck of cards in his hands, the other half spread in rows on the coffee table. You watch him put another card down after a moment—a king of hearts.

Rogers turns away from his game and watches you with tired, glazed eyes, and says nothing. He looks awful, and you wonder if it’s written all over you, too, if there’s pity behind his tired, tense gaze.

“I,” you begin with a throat full of gravel. You swallow thickly, prepared to turn back the way you came. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Rogers shakes his head. “Ain’t doing anything that important,” he mutters. “You can stay if you want.”

You consider that for a moment. 

It’s the lesser of two evils, you suppose. At this point, you’d rather deal with Rogers’ presence than go back to bed.

You sigh, run a hand through your messy hair. “Move over,” you say before you can think on it too much, fingers itching at the sight of the playing cards. “There’s plenty of better games than solitaire.”

Rogers scoots over and you sit down, leaving a bit of room between the two of you as he gathers up the cards. “Are you any good at poker?” he asks.

“I’m not bad,” you say, and you know it’s true. You know you’re good with cards. You try not to question why or when you learned. You’ve done enough thinking for the night, and judging by the look on Rogers’ face, he just might feel the same. “Go ahead and deal.”

Rogers meets your eyes with something like surprise. He’s still tense, face pinched with lack of sleep, but he shuffles the cards instead of saying whatever is on his mind and silently deals them out, setting four in front of you.

-

You’re good at poker. Very good.

It requires enough focus that you don’t think about the nightmare, about the lingering sickness it left you with, Rogers looks a little more at ease, some of his tension melting away in the easy rhythm between the two of you, one you didn’t think you’d be able to find with him.

“Don’t let a guy breathe, do you?” Rogers mutters when you beat him again, the ghost of a smile lingering on his lips.

When poker gets repetitive, he suggests gin rummy, which you vaguely recall playing but can’t pull up much else about it. He runs you through the basics and there’s a test round, then an actual round which Rogers wins.

“Oh, I see how it is,” you tell him.

Rogers raises his brows, all mockingly innocent. “How what is?”   
  
“You don’t like losing, so you picked a game that you’re good at,” you say.

That makes his smile broaden, ever so slightly. “No idea what you’re talking about.”   
  
After another round, you get frustrated and decide to teach him Durak, which he turns out to already know thanks to Natalia, and that goes by quickly enough that you both grow bored after the second round.   
  
It’s nearly four in the morning now, and you still can’t bring yourself to think about sleeping.

You suck on your teeth, thinking of something else to occupy yourself, and ask if he’s heard of Svoyi Koziri. He says he hasn’t, and you take your time explaining it, feeling a little more than surprised when you notice that Rogers is listening with rapt attention.

“You sure you got that?” you ask when you deal the cards out. “This isn’t really a game of chance.”   
  
“I’ll figure it out,” Rogers says nonchalantly.

You begin to notice you feel...not better, but definitely calmer. More stable than you were a little while ago. It’s helping, passing the time with Rogers, even though you’re only talking when you have to.

“So, where’d you learn this one?” Rogers asks halfway through the game.

“Would you believe me if I said I don’t remember?” you answer, then look up at him, take in his pinched-up expression he’s trying and failing to hide. “Quit looking so sour, Rogers. I can joke about it if I want to.”

“I know,” Rogers says quickly, raising his free hand. “I know, it’s just taking me a minute to get used to. That’s all.”   
  
You run your tongue over your teeth, considering it as you set your card down. Rogers does the same without a word. He wins this round. You exhale slowly, set the last of the cards down and sit back.

“I overheard you talking to Natalia,” you say.

That has the mirth running straight off Rogers’ face. 

“You overheard or you eavesdropped?” he asks.

“Which would you prefer?” you ask sharply, and don’t know why. Things were going well, turning easier between the two of you. “I have enhanced hearing, too. It could be either one.”   
  
Rogers sets his cards down and scrubs his palm over his mouth. His stubble, light blond and all but invisible, rasps against it. “How much did you hear?” he asks as he meets your eyes.

Of course he’s not thrilled at the fact. You invaded his privacy, intruded on a moment he thought he had with Natalia.

“Everything,” you answer.

It’s no use lying to him. Rogers isn’t stupid, and he should know you’re not one to beat around the bush.

Or maybe he doesn’t know that. Maybe Barnes wasn’t the sort to outright say what he wanted or how he felt, and this is entirely new to both of you. Maybe this is just a side effect of your newfound independence, being as blunt as possible, refusing to give into anyone, no matter who it was.

Rogers looks conflicted, mouth twitching downward. He wants to say something, but you can’t quite gauge what it is.

“I’m not good with blind trust,” you tell him.

“You got your reasons,” Rogers says quickly, and while it doesn’t surprise you, it does catch you off guard. “I guess I’d do the same if I were you.”   


A part of you wants to apologize, but the thought makes your throat seize up. Apologies are pleas for forgiveness, the hope of being spared from punishment. You know Rogers will not punish you. You know this, but you still say nothing.

“Natalia’s right, you know,” you tell him after a while. “You’d be better off in New York.”

“That’s the last place I want to be right now,” Rogers says. “I’d rather stay here with you.”   
  
“What makes you think I’m staying here?” you shoot back.

“Where else would you go?” Rogers asks, and you’re taken aback. He holds a hand out, as if to show he means no ill will. “I mean it, James. Where would you go?”

It takes a moment for you to respond, to shake your head. “I don’t know,” you say, and try to drum up a better aswer. “I have identification, I have papers. I can go anywhere.”   
  
“Anywhere,” Rogers echoes, and you know what he’s thinking now, even if he won’t say it out loud.   
  
“Yes, anywhere,” you say. “ _ Alone _ .”

“I never said—”   
  
“But that’s what you want,” you cut in. “You’re not going anywhere with me, Rogers. I can’t risk that.”

You unfold yourself from your position on the sofa and make to leave, but Rogers is standing up now. “You can do whatever you want,” he says. “I mean it, but there’s gonna be times where you need someone watching your back.”

Your right hand has curled into a fist, fingernails digging into the calloused flesh of your palm. His gaze is burning into the back of your head, and you don’t think to turn around. You don’t want to face him head-on. “I can take care of myself,” you say through clenched teeth. “I can survive on my own. I don’t need help, and I don’t need  _ you _ .”

It’s the truth. You were getting by just fine until you entangled yourself into Rogers’ life. You started this path alone and ou should keep it that way, minimize as much damage as possible.

You aren’t sure whose sake it’s for.

“Do you remember what I told you on the helicarrier?” Rogers asks, and then he’s stepping in front of you, right into your line of sight. “I meant it, but those weren’t my words. You told me that. You made that promise to me, so now it’s my turn—” his lips form around another name, but he stops himself, eyes swiveling over your face for a long moment. “It’s my turn to follow through on it.”

There’s something he’s not saying. You can see it in his eyes and you can feel it in the way your heart pounds.

“I didn’t remember telling you that,” you tell him. “I remember it now, but I didn’t when you said it.”

_ End of the line _ , he said, but the words didn’t resonate. Not then. All you could recall is the blinding afternoon light in your eyes, the warmth of a scrawny shoulder under your palm, so different from the body you were clutching at then, but the same eyes staring back at you, and a thousand things you couldn’t tell him trapped behind your teeth.

And then Rogers fell.

He tumbled into the Potomac, and you had no choice but to jump after him. You were sure you were going to die anyway.

You were going to die, and all you wanted was to understand, all you wanted was an answer, and you couldn’t even face it once you both lived, once you dragged him onto the bank.

Now, the memory is so much clearer. The chill in the air, the only warmth coming from the waning winter sunlight, swiping a key off the ground and handing it to Rogers despite the way he tried to shake you off. Who would have thought that there was a time where he was trying to shake  _ you _ off? Who would have thought your dynamic was turned the other way, with you chasing him rather than him chasing after you?

“I remember it now,” you repeat, and you’re far too aware of how raw your voice is becoming.

Rogers says nothing. The words hang heavy in the air, and you feel even more worn than you did earlier, like you’ve given him too much, let him take too much of the things you’ve only just regained.

“Save the promises for your friends, Rogers,” you say, not unkind, but not compassionate either.

“Why do you think I’m offering one to you?” Rogers argues. “If you don’t want it, there’s nothing I can do about that, but if you think I’m not gonna try—”   
  
“You don’t get it,” you snarl, finger pointing in his face as you stalk closer. “Anyone who had the clearance to see my face is dead, so I can go under the radar. You, you’re...” you resist the urge to shout, to grab him, and clench your hand into a fist. Swallow thickly. “If the wrong person finds you, they find me, too, and then we’re  _ both _ done for.”

You’re breathing heavily, and Rogers hasn’t taken his eyes off of you, gaze flickering over your face almost frantically.

“You said you trusted me,” you continue. “Do you mean that?”   
  
Rogers is stricken, brimming with anticipation. “You know I do,” he says. 

“Then  _ listen to me _ ,” you try to growl, but it comes out pleading, desperate. You bring your hands up to his shoulders and they seem to trail up of their own accord. You feel the warm, steady solidness of him beneath your right palm, and only the faintest pressure, the faintest shape against the left. “Do what you’re told for once in your goddamn life and stay  _ put _ .”

You’ve backed him against the wall, and he’s staring at you like you’ve grown a second head, like you’ve turned into someone else entirely. You aren’t sure if that’s a good thing. You don’t want him to see you as anything but what you are now.

_ But is that really the case? _

“You have to trust me,” you murmur, swallowing thickly. “Because they can’t have another. I can’t let them make another, and I can’t let it be you.”

It hangs in the air heavily. You’re pressed too close to him. Close enough that he must feel your heart racing.

You know that if the worst happened, you’d have to throw yourself back into HYDRA’s clutches until you found him again, but something is telling you you’d fail. His programming process wouldn’t be as long and laborious as yours due to their new methods, new technology they’ve surely been waiting to try. They’d make him stronger, faster, deadlier, more efficient than they made you because that was the plan all along.

You were the rusty old model, and the only reason you weren’t tossed out was because your replacements failed.

All the men and women they experimented on failed. The Black Widows failed. The Winter Soldier failed. They wouldn’t allow Project Moros to fail, not when there were so many possibilities with Rogers.

“So, swear you won’t follow me,” you say, try to keep your voice steady. “Swear it to me, Rogers.”

“I swear,” Rogers says, like he’s talking to a spooked animal. Maybe that’s all you are. “I swear I won’t.”

You release a breath you didn’t realize you were holding, short and sharp, and it mingles with Rogers’, hot against your skin.

He’s close, so close you can see the tiniest imperfections in his face, little things the serum couldn’t erase. The scar on his temple, the one on his chin from shaving and nicking himself too deep. You won’t question how or why you know that, because there’s no point in deluding yourself any longer.

The fingers of your right hand are curled tight in his shirt, and you force yourself to release him, but he rests his hand on top of yours, a gentle pressure that suggests nothing in particular.

“We weren’t just friends.” Your voice is a rasp in your throat, barely audible over the rush of blood in your ears. “Were we?”

He’s breathing heavily, eyes widening in measures. “No, we were friends,” he murmurs, nodding minutely. “We were, since we were kids, but—”   
  
You lean forward to press your mouth against his, not allowing him a chance to say anything else.

It’s not a good kiss.

It feels wrong, tainted with misery. Rogers’ lips are warm and dry, and he doesn’t kiss back. He just sits there, frozen against you, and you pull back quickly, breath stuttering out of your mouth.

You feel like you’ve been hit, like your head is spinning, and Rogers doesn’t look far off from that. Like you struck him rather than kissed him.

“Oh, God,” you croak.

Maybe you were wrong. Maybe it was something you wanted, but never acted on. Maybe Rogers never knew how you felt, if you felt anything at all.

Still, he hasn’t let go of you, hand still resting on top of yours.

You make to pull away, but he stops you, tightens his hand around yours.

“Wait,” Rogers says quickly. “Don’t go, just...listen to me. Just for a minute, and then you can do whatever you want.”

You’re torn. Torn between running and pressing even closer, and you can’t help wondering if he feels the same, if that’s why his expression is betraying him despite the hold he has on you.

“What you’re thinking, it’s real, but it’s too easy of a thing to lie about,” Rogers explains. He shakes his head, and you’re not sure if it’s his heart or yours pounding that loudly. “And I couldn’t do that to you. I couldn’t just say it because we were friends first, and I knew you’d remember that more than anything else. All I wanted, all I still want is to help you. It’s okay if you never get your memories back, or if you’re not who I remember, because I’m not who you remember, I’m...” he breathes out, sharp and a little wet. “It’s been rough, Buck. Real rough.”   
  
The name slips out of his mouth, unbidden, but it doesn’t bother you as much as it should. 

It sounds more right than James. It sounds more right than no name at all.

“Rough’s a word for it,” you mutter.

You try to recall how it felt the first time, coming off the ice after years in storage. The inevitable confusion, the disorientation, the expectation from your handlers to get your bearings as soon as possible.

But the longest you spent in cryo was a few years. Rogers spent an entire lifetime trapped under the ice.

“Definitely a word for it,” Rogers replies, and the attempted smile he gives you is the most miserable thing you’ve ever seen.

You’re still pressed together, but it’s far from comfortable. Far from feeling anything but good. You feel like your bones are grinding against his, like your breath is too hot, your grip too tight.

You loosen the fingers of your left hand, still twisted in Rogers’ shirt, and then smooth the material down. He’s watching you curiously, cautiously. 

“You let me kiss you,” you murmur and he nods, urging you on. “You could have shoved me off.”   
  
“I didn’t want to,” Rogers says. “God, maybe I’m wrong for it, but I didn’t want you to stop.”

You swallow thickly, debating your words carefully. “When was the last time,” you begin. “When did we—”

“1944,” Rogers says. “We were in Paris, just as a checkpoint and we had some time alone.”

“It was a flat,” you say, half to yourself, the memory you already retrieved sharpening, becoming so much more clear. “Just one room.”

  
“Just one,” Rogers repeats, breathy and short. “It was like sleeping in a shoebox, but I didn’t mind it so much. I don’t think you did either.”   
  
_ Because it reminded you of home. _

The flat—safehouse?—was little and cold, the bathroom barely bigger than a linen closet with a tub in the kitchen. It smelled of smoke, and you vaguely recall the taste of something sweet and rich on your tongue. Rogers pulled a box from his coat moments before and said,  _ when are we gonna eat anything like this again? _

You smoked and passed a bottle of sherry abandoned in the cabinet between the two of you and ate whatever pastry Rogers managed to get his hands on. 

And then you took him on the floor, kissed the sweetness of sherry and sickeningly sweet berries from his mouth.

The memory has your breath catching, throat drying out. You can’t say what you need to, can’t tell him you remember it, that you’re recalling the rhythm of his body and the sound of his voice and the meaning behind every twitch of his expression between each breath shuddering its way out of you.

Your left hand slowly, sliding to the back of Rogers’ neck. Your thumb lingers at the corner of his jaw, and he must see something pass over your face, something as raw as the memories trickling in.

Maybe he knows you just as well and he can see it all in your expression, in the tight, wounding tension in your body.

“Can I…?” Rogers begins, and he stands up straighter, slides his free hand up to mirror yours, the damp warmth of his hand lingering at your nape, thumb just below your jaw.

You nod, unable to find the right words, and then meet him halfway when he leans forward.

It feels better this time. Tentative, but surer than before. Now, you can feel the soft warmth of Rogers’ mouth pressing back against your own, taste his breath, hear his stubble rasping against yours.

You wish you cared more about the fact that you’ve veered off course. You wish you cared more about making Rogers stay away, but you’ve been flaring up with want since you walked in the woods with him, since you locked yourself in the bathroom and took yourself over the edge with the thought of him.

So, why should you pull away?

You take advantage of the moment, thoughts turning away from the past entirely and only on what you feel now. The pounding of your heart. The sharp sweep of want starting at your navel and shivering up your spine.

Rogers smells like cotton and sweat, like warmth, and you want to get closer to him, want to slide your hands under his shirt and find the source of that heat, run your fingers over his stomach and his hip, feel the pound of his heart against your palm growing more urgent as you move up toward his chest, over his throat.

His breath is short against your mouth when he breaks away, swallowing down air like his head had been forced underwater. You’re doing the same, you realize, body pressed to his. He’s squeezing your right hand, thumb running over the veins on the back of it.

You pull back, lips buzzing, and allow yourself to look at him. You take in the slickness of his mouth, the high flush on his face like a fever. You wonder what you must look like, because you can feel yourself trembling slightly under Rogers’ grip.

A part of you is tempted to lean in again, but you don’t.   


Instead you ask, “Was it always like this?”   


It comes out low and hoarse, like you haven’t spoken in days. The kiss wasn’t heated, it wasn’t hungry for anything else, it was simply...good.   
  
Then again, you haven’t kissed anyone in decades.

Rogers’ adam's apple bobs as he swallows, and then he shakes his head. “No,” he murmurs. “No, we...it was only about a year and a half. And then—” his jaw pulses hard, eyes dropping somewhere distant before they focus on you again. “I guess I don’t gotta tell you.”   
  
“No, you don’t,” you say, maybe too quickly.   
  
The problem is that while you know you fell, know how and why it happened, you don’t remember anything afterward.

All you can recall is pain and the cold, blood soaking through your clothes, but those sensations could be from any time, really. They could be from ‘44, or ‘86, or two weeks ago.

You must have been comatose. Your memories could have been impaired from the beginning. You know your legs were broken. You have the scars to prove it. You know your spine was broken, repaired with bolts and screws. You remember it because you woke up halfway through, pain shooting up your drug-laden body, a scream caught in your throat before you were put under again.

“James,” Rogers says, pulling you from your thoughts. “If you want to know everything, I’ll tell you everything.”   
  
_ Everything _ . 

Everything meaning the life you shared with Rogers, which for him, ended only a few years ago. There are decades you can’t recall, won’t recall for years to come, if you make it.

But the life you spent with him, with the family you’re beginning to remember with sharper clarity, was  _ yours _ . The Winter Soldier was the mold you were forced into, the memories, while yours, were not from a life you chose.

So, you nod. 

You nod as you loosen your hold on him and ease backward. “Not now,” you say. “Not now, but I…” you ignore the way your lips are tingling with the phantom pressure of his mouth, the way your skin is craving the warmth of his hand all over again. “I want to know.”

Rogers hasn’t moved from his spot and you’re tempted to fill the space you abandoned all over again, press your body back up against his more comfortably, but you bite back the urge and pointedly don’t look anywhere but his face before you walk away, back upstairs before you shut yourself back in your room again.

Then, you allow yourself to breathe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Дайте нам немного конфиденциальности = Give us some privacy
> 
> SPOILER: a child character is killed by bucky in a dream sequence, but this never actually happened.


	8. Chapter 8

You don’t hear Rogers’ footsteps for a long while, but when you do, the sky is lightening and you’re tumbling into a restless sleep, trying your damnedest not to think about any of it.

Thankfully, your dreams slip away the moment you open your eyes to buttery yellow morning sunlight, sneaking through the curtains and temporarily blinding you.

Three hours of sleep, give or take. Not enough for the average man, but more than enough for you. You’re awake, even if you don’t feel rested. You’re not sure you’d be able to sleep more than three hours if you tried.

When you pad silently to the bathroom, you find the house to be silent. You’re relieved for it. Relieved that you might have some time alone, time to think about what happened, and time to avoid Rogers for at least a little while.

You wash the muzzy feeling of sleep from your face and brush the rotten taste from your mouth, and back in your room, you root through the bag Natalia left you, pull out the clothes you’ll need. At the bottom of the bag, there’s a small stick of deodorant, a hair brush, and hair ties.

Truthfully, you’re relieved to have as much as you have now. Even if the belongings aren’t truly yours, they’re  _ yours _ .

That means more to you than you thought it would.

-

With your hair pulled away from your face, your stubble turning to a beard, and the soft clothes on your skin, you look and feel less like the mold HYDRA forced you into, less like the shadow of James Barnes, and more like no one in particular. 

Not a ghost, but an unmemorable man with an unmemorable face.

You think you could use some anonymity.

-

It turns out your head is clear enough for you to find an empty page in your notebook and get to work.

You wrack your brain for more about Brooklyn, trying not to think of the exhibits, of the little things Rogers mentioned to you. You shut your eyes and try to picture it all. The sounds, the smells, a body devoid of scars, a mind with a few clear goals.   
  
It hits you in waves, and that’s when you begin to write. Memories of sweltering hot summers, ice cold beer running down your throat. Bone numbing winters, your overworked hands cracking with cold and bleeding, stinging when you washed them with carbolic soap.

You can see Rebecca and your mother so easily now, can recall their voices in snatches, and two languages on each of your tongues. Better on yours, though. Better on Ma’s. Rebecca never got hers wrapped around it, never caught most of the things the two of you said. 

One memory sticks out. A surprisingly warm February night on a fire escape. You sat on it, and Ma had sat on the window sill, an ashtray between the two of you.

_ “You and I are a lot alike, chavo,”  _ she said.  _ “Too much alike.” _

You don’t have to dig deep to know that was true once, but you do have to dig deeper to figure out  _ why _ it’s true. What made you so similar save for your facial features, for the lives you shared?

And then it comes to you.

It comes to you in the glimpse of Zola’s lab, but here, you weren’t the Soldier. Here, your body was all flesh and muscle and it was being torn to bits even then, same with your brain, which had gotten so muddled your dirty secret had slipped straight from your mouth in front of none other than a Nazi who already wanted nothing more than to rip you to shreds.

Now, you know why your past self’s lips curled around the words so easily. Now, you can place why you look the way you do. You can place why your mother had said you’re too much alike, because you both fell for the wrong people, held the same stubbornness in your hearts about it, even if it was in different ways.

This is something else that belongs to you, something that weaseled away from conditioning, from the wipes, from everything HYDRA tried and failed to do to you.

The memories of your mother and your sister belong to you. The memories of speaking a language you thought you lost belong to you. The memory of wanting someone and being wanted in return belongs to you. The ancient, persistent ache in your heart, the far away thought that someone was waiting for you, the thought that always made breaking out of conditioning so much easier, belongs to you. And the thought that you were right belongs to you most of all.

Maybe you can accept that you were loved now, but what’s harder is the thought that  _ you _ loved, in so many different ways. 

You were full with it. Warm with it, even when your stomach was hollow with hunger and your funds were dipping, you loved and you were loved, and there might be someone who loves you now.

There was want in the kiss. Of course there was, but there was something much more frantic there, too. A feeling of making up for lost time. It showed in the gentle, almost reverent way Rogers touched you, met your every movement, like he knew what to expect.

He did, you remind yourself. His wounds are fresh. Yours are scabbed over, opening whenever they’re irritated, but soon they’ll be as fresh as his are. The more your memories return, the more you’ll bleed.

Better your blood than anyone else’s.

-

The coffee maker is frustrating, so you make it the only way you remember how—on the stovetop.

It sticks in your nose, the smell. Lingers in their air pleasantly, stirring something deep inside of you. All you can think when you pour a steaming mug is that it tastes better this way, and tastes better when you’re the one making it. Rogers’ is too watery, too acrid.

_ At least that hasn’t changed _ , some distant part of you thinks, and you don’t try to shove it away.

If you need to do anything, it’s make peace with yourself. Every part of yourself.

-

You decide to raid the bookshelf, and not much of it interests you. Natalia still has a penchant for Russian literature, evidently. You spot Tolstoy and Dostoeyevsky, but the spines aren’t cracked, the pages undisturbed. There are comic books—not Natalia’s, definitely someone else’s—and a few paperbacks with tacky covers. All some brand of science fiction or horror.

One has a demonic looking cat on the cover. You snort softly to yourself and swipe it off the shelf, flipping past the introduction until you find the first chapter. You swipe your mug from the counter and sit on the sofa, lumpy as ever.

You’re getting used to being here. You aren’t sure how to feel about that.

-

When Rogers comes downstairs, you pointedly don’t look up.

“There’s coffee on the stove, just turn the burner back on,” you say, not giving him a moment to say anything about the night before. Your skin prickles just thinking about it.

It could have been a mistake. Despite what you remember, despite the urgency to Rogers’ response, it could have been a mistake. Better to sweep it away, you think.   
  
Unless he brings it up.

“You didn’t have to make coffee,” Rogers says with a voice like gravel, but you hear the burner click on.

“How else was I supposed to drink it?” you shoot back.

Rogers huffs. “Touché.”

Neither of you say much after that, but you feel his eyes on you for a while before the sensation goes away, before Rogers goes outside, shutting the door behind him.

-

The morning slips into the afternoon. From the corner of your eye, you watch Rogers make a late breakfast. This time, it’s oatmeal. He wordlessly leaves a bowl for you on the coffee table, and sits in the breakfast nook by himself.

You set the book down and look down at the bowl. It smells of cinnamon. There are dried apples and raisins sprinkled on top.

As you eat, your spoon clinks against the bowl, almost in unison with Rogers’, and watch the line of his shoulders, prominent through the dark blue of his t-shirt.

When he notices you watching, you turn away and continue eating, trying to focus on the motions of it, on the warmth of the food in your stomach, the fact that you feel full. 

You don’t think you’ve ever felt full in your life. You have a feeling Rogers hasn’t either.

-

Some time later, when your bowl has gone missing and the sink has turned off, Rogers swipes a notepad and pen from the bookshelf, flops into the armchair diagonal from your spot on the couch.   


“What are you reading?” Rogers asks, but he’s not looking at you. You can hear the faintest scritch-scratch from an ink pen.

You raise the cover in his direction.   
  
“Pet Sematary,” he says. “Any good?”   
  
“No,” you say, flipping to the next chapter. You’re almost halfway done.

“Movie’s bad, too.”   
  
“Not surprising.”

Back to silence. You expect him to bring up the night before, but he never does and you’re grateful for it.

Small mercies.

-

When Rogers gets up to answer his burner phone, you crane your neck to see what he’s drawn.

It’s only the deck, the thick trees lining the cabin, the foliage thick and rich.   
  
Somehow, you’re disappointed. You aren’t sure what you were expecting to find, but it wasn’t that.

-

You try not to listen to his conversations this time, especially since he’s made a point of going in the basement, but it’s hard not to pay attention when you hear a name that’s not your name, when you hear  _ fine _ and  _ I’m sure _ and  _ no, no goddamn way that’s going to happen _ .

Then, it takes far more willpower not to listen in, but still, you resist.

Rogers is on the phone for a long while after that, but he speaks so quietly you can’t hear him anymore.

You might be better off in the dark this time.

-

For a while, you go outside. You sit on the stairs and read until the sky darkens, until the air turns brisk, and then you go back inside, relieved for the rush of warmth that hits you.

“Thought you booked it,” Rogers says.   
  
You shake your head. “Not yet.”

This is the first time you’ve looked him in the eye all day, and he looks as tired as he always does. Or more than he usually does. Or maybe it’s not fatigue at all, maybe it’s just stress, weight on his shoulders straining every part of him. You wonder if he got any sleep last night, and then shove the thought away.

“I’m kidding,” you say seriously, but he smiles faintly anyway, some dark veil lifting from his eyes.

“I was gonna make dinner,” Rogers says. “You hungry?”

-

Dinner turns out to be overcooked spaghetti with a jar of sauce dumped into it. It doesn’t taste good, but you can’t bring yourself to care, finding yourself eating two heaping bowls of it, fork clinking against the plate, almost in unison with Rogers’. You’ve chosen to sit with him this time, even though you barely look each other in the eye for most of the meal.

“You really plowed through that,” he teases. “Maybe I’m a better cook than I thought.”

You snort softly, humorlessly. “Don’t flatter yourself,” you say through a mouthful. “And I’m not the one plowing through my food when you’re on your third helping.”   
  
“Fast metabolism,” Rogers says.

“I know all about fast metabolisms,” you say, and push your empty plate away from you. “We run the same way. Need the same amount of fuel to burn, so you eat as much as you can when you can, or enough to keep you going.”

Rogers pauses, wipes his mouth. You think it’s an excuse to choose his words before he speaks, since there’s nothing on his face. “That something you know or something you figured out?” he asks.

  
“I’m figuring it out,” you answer, then lean back and raise the hem of your shirt to show him the sunken scar where your feeding tube once was, just for a moment before you let go. “Eating wasn’t really…I felt more like a car getting gassed up.”

His eyes slide back up to yours after a few seconds. He’s swallowing back something else, maybe some apology that won’t help your case, won’t erase the scars on your body or the bloodstains on your hands.

Your dinner suddenly sits like a rock in your stomach.

“Can I ask you something?” Rogers asks.

You hum.

“Why do you think you’re remembering so quickly?”

You open your mouth to speak, and then stop, allow yourself a moment to think.

“If you wanna get technical about it,” you say slowly. “I think I heal so fast, whatever they tried on me wouldn’t hold. The wipes don’t even erase anything. They just scatter it all. Makes it harder for me to put everything together unless everything stopped in its tracks.”

You didn’t think you knew this much, but as it turns out, you weren’t as unaware as your handlers thought when they spoke about you right in front of you.

Rogers watches you instead of responding, looking for something you can’t quite put your finger on. You watch him in return, gaze sliding over the tension between his brows, the sour twist to his mouth that’s forced away after a few seconds.   
  
“I know you don’t need me telling you this,” Rogers says quietly. “But you’re doing great. Really, you are.”

That’s the problem, though. You  _ do _ need someone telling you, because you wouldn’t be able to tell even if the evidence knocked you in the face. Sure, you’re regaining your memories, regaining a sense of self, but those are things you’ve always had.

They just kept getting taken from you.

There was no way for you to hide it, no way for you to get your thoughts together and escape because someone was bound to notice. A tech, a handler, a doctor. Someone always threw you back on the chopping block.

Something grave must pass over your face, because Rogers is searching your expression for an answer. You don’t let him find it. You do the only thing you can think of and deflect.

“Flattering again,” you say instead. “Won’t work on me either, Rogers.”   


A faint smile pulls at the corners of his mouth, fades almost completely. “Noted,” he says without much humor, and then he slips from his seat. “I’m gonna clean this up if you’re finished.”

“I can do it,” you say instead of answering. He looks surprised, brows raising upward. “Clean up. I’m not stupid, you know.”

“Yeah, ‘course,” Rogers says after a few seconds, visibly off-balance for reasons you can’t place. You squint at him. “Thanks, James.”

You hate the sound of the name in his mouth and how unfamiliar it sounds. You hate the way he knows it, too.

You say nothing. You only stack both empty plates, grab Rogers’ fork, and step past him to get into the kitchen, setting it all in the sink along with the empty pot as Rogers ascends the stairs.

At least this feels familiar. It’s less a memory of a specific time, you just know you know what to do. The idea of that is almost a relief, the idea that you can simply let your hands do what needs to be done without thinking too much of it.

Your stop in your tracks when the pipes creak and groan, when the shower turns on. You glance upward, faintly able to hear the slosh of water, hear Rogers’ footsteps before they cease, meaning he’s gotten inside, under the spray.

You try very hard not to think about that, but you ultimately fail.

Breathing out through your nose, you drum the fingers of both hands on the counter, all the while grinding your teeth together.

Last night may have been a one-off situation, whether you have history together or not. It could have been you searching for answers, it could have been Rogers simply helping you find your way there. Or maybe he does want as much as you do and refuses to let himself act anymore, still seeing you as someone clinging onto threads of free will, or searching for guidance.

But, if anyone was coaxed, it was him. You felt in control, you know your want is your own, but even with the way Rogers kissed you back, you’re not completely sure of what he wants.   
  
What would he do, you wonder, if you came into the bathroom, if you stripped naked and stepped under the shower spray with him? Would he find a way to weasel away from you, or would he welcome it? Would he pull you closer, under the warm spray, steam thick between your bodies? 

It might be bearable then, if you had Rogers with you, pressed against you, easier to distract yourself from intrusive memories. Then again, it doesn’t feel  _ right _ . The thought of being so close, so bare, so early on, is almost overwhelming.

You need time to adjust, like lowering yourself into freezing water.

Waiting for him to get out then, waiting in his room. That might be the right way to do it. Once the shower shuts off, once he steps into his room with a towel around his waist, skin wet and hair clinging to his brow, you’ll be the first thing he sees and you’ll meet him halfway. You’ll feel the residual heat of the water clinging to his skin, bleeding through your shirt when you press close to him, smell the sharp, bright clean smell of body wash, and maybe the mintiness of toothpaste when you kiss him this time. Maybe he’ll see you want this, truly want it, and maybe he’ll let you—

Your breath comes out trembling and short, a dark rush of want curling between your legs and leaving you twitching against your thigh. You scrub your hands over your face, trying to shake it off. You can’t do that. You won’t do that. It’s all just—it’s  _ meaningless _ . Intrusive things that keep finding their way into your head.

Another breath, then another, and then another, each one growing slower and far more measured as you reel yourself in. As you try hard not to think, to let your mind wander away. If you don’t, you’ll do something foolish, and you might become a slave to your body once more.

You scrub your hands over your face and do your best not to listen to the splatter of water, to the race of your own heart.

Besides, there are other things that need to be done, and you’d might as well finish the task at hand. You roll your sleeves up, squeeze soap onto the sponge left at the edge of the sink, and turn both faucets on.

It warms under your right hand as you scrub streaks of sauce from the plates, from the forks. You make quick work of it, getting to the pot quickly and turning the water as hot as you can bear. There’s a pause as the pipes groan once more, as the water heater gurgles, and then a hard, heavy thud.

Coming from upstairs.

It seems to reverberate through the bones of the house. It’s not an object. It’s not something slipping off a shelf. You don’t think that for a second. You know the sound of a body hitting the ground too well to mistake it for anything else.

You shut the sink off, swipe a steak knife from a drawer, and make a sharp turn down the hallway. You take the stairs two at a time, as silently as you can.

The shower is still running. You scope every corner of the hallway out, peek into Rogers’ room, into Natalia’s. You tug the closets open, you check under the bed, and find nothing.

“Rogers?” you call, and get nothing in response.

If anyone else was here, they would have tried to attack you by now. You call his name again, knock on the door hard, and once again, get only silence in return.

You grip the knife tighter and wrench the bathroom door open, relieved to find it unlocked. 

The little window parallel to the sink is shut, the room undisturbed. No broken glass, no blood. Nothing is out of place.

Nothing except for the shower curtain pulled from its hooks, the body crumbled down on the floor of the tub.

You stop in your tracks, knife still held loosely in your hand before you toss it into the sink with a clatter, moving closer to Rogers before your brain has a chance to rationalize the movements of your body.

“Shit,” you hiss, barely able to hear yourself over the roar of the shower, rapping hard against the plastic curtain like rainfall on a roof. 

Rogers is as pale as the tiles he’s pressed up against, legs half-drawn up and tangled in the shower curtain. The spray runs heavily over his head, water running in rivulets down his lashes, the tip of his nose, his chin. You can see the faintest tinge of blood in the corner of his mouth.

He doesn’t move. He doesn’t look at you. He barely breathes, shivering between each attempt at inhaling, gaze fixed somewhere you can’t see, 

You stretch the fingers of your right hand into the spray and pull it back when you find it to be ice cold.

It's a creaky old house with even older pipes. You should have thought of that. You should have  _ assumed _ it would—

“Shit,” you repeat, flick the droplets off your hand with a sharp shake. “ _ Shit _ , Rogers.”

You shut the faucets off, plunging the bathroom into a thick silence. The only sound is Rogers’ labored, shuddering breaths. His lips are tinged grey, from either cold or panic.

_ The crash _ , you think belatedly. The Valkyrie sinking beneath the slushy waves of the Arctic Ocean. The Smithsonian didn’t detail it, only spoke of it as some sort of heroic sacrifice, and even if that’s what it was intended to be, you can’t imagine the cold bringing back any good memories for him.

Sounds familiar.

You crouch down, leaning into his space. “Rogers,” you say firmly, ignoring the water dripping on the top of your head. “Rogers, snap out of it.”

He only shivers, continues staring off into the distance.

You lightly slap his face with your flesh hand, again and again, but he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t do anything save for squeezing his eyes shut against each strike. “Hey,” you say, louder than before. Another slap, still light, but sharper than before. “Yeah, asshole, I’m talking to you.  _ Look at me _ .”

It’s cruel. Even you know that. This is new, this is far too new, and you don’t know how to fix it. Maybe you knew how once, but now, you can barely handle your own messes, barely handle your own bad memories, and the thought of not being able to bring Rogers out—

You grit your teeth, pulling your hand back before you slap him hard. Hard enough to leave his cheek flushing red instantly, to leave something like guilt eating at your insides. 

But that’s when the strange slackness to his body hardens, that’s when his expression twitches into something less hazy.

“ _ Rogers _ ,” you say again, loud enough to echo in the little room, and he cringes, opening his eyes. You grab either side of his face and try not to look at your mismatched hands; just him, even as he searches your face.   
  
“Buck,” he breathes out slowly, a droplet of water splashing on your face. You hold your breath briefly, and then force it out. “Jesus, Bucky, what the hell are you…”

_ Let him believe what he wants to believe. Let him believe you’re the man he lost. _

It’s just the shock of the cold, the memories creeping in, and now is not the time to correct him. You wrack your brain for a way to do this easily, smoothly, and try very hard not to think of yourself coming out of the tank. All you can associate with that is confusion, disorientation, and pain.

His senses must be coming back to him, because he knits his brows together, waiting for your answer.  


“Don’t worry about it right now,” you say, shake your head and do your best to keep your tone even. Like one would do for a child, for the dying. Your chest twinges when he leans into the warmth of your right hand, breath shaky and hot against your wrist, a stark contrast to the chill of his skin. “Don’t. Just—” you plant your feet on the floor, shift into a crouch. “Come on, let me help you.”

You wrench the shower curtain off of him, toss it to the far corner of the tub. “Grab my hand,” you say, offering him the left one. When he grabs it, you squeeze back tight enough that you can almost,  _ almost _ feel it. “That’s it, big guy.”

It’s easier than you expect, hauling him up. Rogers is tall, weighs a ton, but you’re no different. You’ve killed and maimed men far bigger than him, anyway, and a part of you wonders if that was before you were the Soldier. If you’ve always had blood on your hands.

Rogers stumbles when he steps onto the bathmat, legs giving out just as you tug his arm around your shoulders, feel his full weight concentrated there, as heavy as he was when you hauled him out of the Potomac.

This time, however, he’s far from lax. Far from the dead weight you pulled to shore. 

There’s a fine tremor running through his body, fingers twisting into the back of your shirt, searching for purchase, for something solid. You keep your other hand tight on his hip, 

“Hey,” you mutter without looking at him. You don’t think you can. You focus on getting him out of the bathroom instead. “You with me?”   
  
From the corner of your eye, he nods. Just barely.   
  
“Good,” you say. “Keep it that way.”

Rogers breathes out, hard and fast, falling into a slow, hesitant step with you. “I’m getting you wet,” he mumbles almost deliriously, and yes, he is getting you wet. Every part of you pressed up against him is getting wet, freezing water bleeding through your clothes. You suppress a shiver of your own.

“Worry about that later,” you say as you cross the threshold to his room, hesitantly let him go. “Sit down.”

You hear the bed creak, heavy and slow, as he does. You root through a mostly empty drawer, scarcely filled with the clothes Natalia brought him. You toss pajama bottoms and a t-shirt on the bed beside him, and go back into the bathroom, tugging a towel from the rack before returning, tossing it into his lap, all the while keeping your eyes off him.

“You with me?” you ask again, arms crossed tight. “Use your words, Rogers.”   


You spare him a glance, and to your surprise, he meets your eyes.

For a moment, nothing happens. Rogers doesn’t speak, doesn’t move, and neither do you. You become painfully aware of the damp coldness settling into your own body and you’re tempted to strip, to get into something warm and dry as fast as you can.

The cold has always been a rotten thing to you. Waking up covered in slush, frost sticking to your hair, icy snot stuck to your upper lip, sweat crystalizing on your forehead. Slushy mud slipping into your boots, soaking through your socks. Shivering on cold hard ground at the bottom of a foxhole that felt more like a grave. Bleeding out in the snow with part of your body missing, throat raw from screaming, blood hot in your mouth. Drafts slipping through cracks, nailing ply boards onto windows, curling around a skinny body to keep the cold out.

Something about this, this particular moment, feels familiar, and not in a good way. An open window and snow on the floor, a rattling cough and a pair of lips turning blue, guilt hot and aching in the center of your chest.

Rogers breathes out, slow and labored. “I’m with you,” he echoes, voice barely above a whisper. “I promise, I’m with you.”

His gaze is getting less bleary, expression more present than it was a moment ago. He has the towel in his lap now, covering him up for the most part. His hair is still wet, dripping down his neck and his shoulders.

You nod, keep your eyes on him. “You were bleeding,” you remark.

Rogers shakes his head. “I think I bit through my cheek,” he says, and you see the faint movement there as his tongue runs over the tear. He stops, still holding the towel awkwardly in his lap. “I’m sorry.”

Your brows knit together. You resist the urge to step closer, to bring your hands to his face again.

You hate apologies. Hate giving them, hate receiving them. Apologies are pleas for mercy.

“Nothing to be sorry for,” you manage to say, force a sharp breath out through your mouth. “I’m not a fan of the cold myself. We both have our reasons.”   
  
Rogers tilts his head, raises his brows, eyes falling to the floor for a moment. “Guess we do,” he mutters. He’s still shivering. 

“Besides,” you blurt out. “I’m the one who should be sorry.”

“What?” Rogers says, hoarse, and another layer of the haze melts away. He reaches for his shirt without taking his eyes off of you.

“The water going cold on you,” you explain, back against the doorjamb. “Used up the hot water while I was cleaning. I’m sorry.”

Rogers shakes his head. “You didn’t know,” he says, but it doesn’t ease your worries. “Not the first time it’s happened, anyway, it’s just...it’s been a while. Thought it was getting easier.”   
  
You aren’t sure what to say, so you don’t answer. You turn around when you see him reach for the pajama bottoms, suddenly feeling exposed, like your own clothes are missing, like layers of skin are being stripped from your bones.   
  
It’s funny, only a few minutes ago you were thinking of meeting him here, pushing past your reservations and going after what you wanted, and now you can barely look at him without feeling sick.

-

You only leave the room to change your own clothes. You leave your wet socks, your damp jeans, your damp shirt in the corner with your other dirty clothes, and change into sweatpants, another long sleeved shirt. The next pair of socks are as soft as the previous pair. You’re getting used to not wearing shoes, which is a strangely liberating sensation.

You watch Rogers through a gap in your door, left ajar. He’s toweling his hair dry, his back to you. He’s tense, as tense as he was earlier, but there’s a difference, one someone would only notice if they were looking for it.

You’re looking for it. You think you’re looking at him all the time, anyway, caught in an endless cycle of trying to figure him out. You can tell he’s thinking. You can tell he’s humiliated and you can tell he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for something to happen.

Better to stave it off, for your sake and his.

The hall is very narrow, and it only takes a few steps for you to reach his doorway. You lean against it, keep your posture ramrod straight, as rigid as his.

“Your brain takes you to the crash when the cold hits,” you say. “Doesn’t it.”

Rogers stills, then tosses his towel in the corner with unnecessary force. “Yeah, James, it takes me to the crash,” he says. “‘Course it takes me to the goddamn crash.”

Then he stops, turns around, looking almost regretful. “I didn’t mean—”   
  
“I know,” you cut in, and take a step closer, the carpet thick beneath your feet. “I know, Rogers.”

He looks like he’s preparing himself. For what, you aren’t sure, but his posture seems torn between stiffening and relaxing.

“Only fair I get some shit in return,” you continue. “I’m not what you’d call a good roommate.”   
  
Rogers huffs. “Nah, you’re not that bad,” he says, and it sounds genuine. Warm. You’re standing closer to him than you thought you were. “Worse people to get stuck with, anyway.”

That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever heard from anyone. You’re surprised to feel your lips pull up at the corners, but you force the attempt at a smile away. 

“You’re not so bad yourself,” you mutter.

There’s a droplet of water on Rogers’ forehead, prepared to drip down the side of his face.

Without thinking, you reach forward and swipe it away with your thumb, fingers lingering at his temple. He swallows when you don’t pull away immediately, when your fingers settle into his wet hair.

You could do anything right now. You could kiss him, either with intent to take it further or in a way that asks for nothing more than what he gives you in return, just the closeness of his body and the warmth of his hands. You could let some of your warmth bleed into his body, and his into yours. He’d probably let you.

But you let your hand fall away from his face and stick it into your pocket. The moment breaks.

“I wanted to ask,” Rogers begins.

“Ask me tomorrow,” you say, cutting him off and taking a step back. “Get some sleep. You need it more than you think.”

He visibly deflates, but he nods. “Yeah, probably,” he says. “See you in the morning.”

You know he won’t listen, but you aren’t sure how else to get away. Your skin is prickling all over, like you haven’t kissed him at all, like you haven’t already brought yourself off to the thought of him.

“See you in the morning,” you echo, and when you walk out, you let him shut the door behind you.

And then you just stand there.

You stand there for a while, wondering if he’s noticed, and then shut yourself in your room.

-

You don’t bother touching the notebook. You don’t even bother opening it. Your mind is racing too quickly for you to make any sense, and all you can think of is Rogers’ icy skin, the faraway look in his eyes when he refused to come back to himself.

It’s hard not to imagine what happened in the cockpit of the plane. The freezing water bursting through the windows, pelting Rogers with glass. Maybe he’d wedge himself somewhere, or consider a way to swim up to the surface, consider it until the water rose too high, up over his chest until it took his breath away, lungs crushed in its grip.

You’ve swam in freezing water before, what it does to the body. You remember swimming and swimming through the dark depths of it until you found the ladder to your target’s yacht and climbed on.

If it felt like pins and needles, like your breath being stolen away even while prepared, you wonder how it felt without the proper gear, without the preparation that you painstakingly took.

You wonder how long it took for him to stop breathing.

You wonder if he was relieved when it finally happened.

-

Resisting the urge to go back into his room, to pick up where you left off, is almost impossible, but you manage to do it.

The hour slips by, and when midnight rolls past, you find yourself forced into a sleep that doesn’t feel much like sleep at all. Your mind is still alive, still running circles around itself, so even as you drift, you feel wired and worn thin until you’re nothing at all.

-

You don’t know where you are at first. You can’t see anything but blackness, but you can hear everything. You can hear everything, even the clack of your own teeth and you realize you’re cold. So cold. You ache with it, limbs stiff and uncooperative when you try to move, to get your blood pumping again and push past the familiar, creeping chill.

But there’s no space to move. No space to breathe because you’re in cryo and you shouldn’t be breathing at all. 

Your heart is pumping sluggishly, blood turning to slush in your veins, and even when you try to scream, nothing comes out. You try again, but it doesn’t work. You can feel your mouth open with it, but all that comes out is a rasping, short breath that leaves your chest tightening up until you can’t breathe at all. 

Condensation is gathering inside of the tank, crystalizing around you, onto you. You’ve never been awake this long. You should be sedated by now. You should have only felt the burst of cold and then fell into unawareness.

Your throat is being crushed by an invisible grip that only tightens the more you try to call for help. This isn’t right, you try to say, and it sounds foolish, but you have to try to speak. You can’t die in here. You’re not supposed to die here. You’re not supposed to die like this.

There’s frost on your eyelashes and your skin is burning, frostbite surely claiming your numbing fingers.  _ It’s not real _ , you try to tell yourself, but it’s impossible to think straight now. The cold is burrowing through your eye sockets and into your skull, and you can hear a voice just outside the tank, muffled, like your head has been forced under thick snow. Like a wet cloth has been put over your face and someone is pouring water over it, asking you questions you don’t know the answers to.

You can hear the whir of a saw. Another voice that sends a prickle of terror up your spine. You can hear footsteps, rapid and heavy, but whoever it is won’t help you, they don’t care whether you live or die, they—   


You’re shivering. Soaked in sweat. Your limbs are weak and uncooperative, like they can’t hold you up at all. Your throat scraped is raw, ears ringing almost painfully. You must have been screaming, you must have been thrashing because there are hands on you, holding your shoulders in place, your fingers grip at something, tight enough to bruise. Flesh. A bicep.  _ Push them off _ , you think,  _ push them off and run _ .

Your teeth are clacking together, You want to run. You’d run, but you can’t move. You can’t  _ move _ . “Нет, стой, отойди от меня, пожалуйста, отойди от меня—”

“James, stop, it’s  _ me _ .” 

And just like that, the grip on you isn’t confining.

“It’s just me,” Rogers continues. “Open your eyes. It’s okay. You’re okay.”

It’s frantic, blurted out in a rush. You open your eyes, feverishly taking in your surroundings as you swallow down a breath that does you no good, not with the way your heart is throwing itself against your ribcage.

Natalia’s room. Your clothes in the corner. Your notebook on the bedside table.

When your eyes land on him, you find he’s mere inches away from you, hands tight on your shoulders, body hovering over yours to keep you from twisting out of the bed. His breath is quick and hot against your skin, face twisted up with fear as he looks down at you.

“Rogers,” you gasp out hoarsely, barely able to hear yourself with your pulse in your ears. You’re still shaking. You feel like you might not be able to stop.

“Yeah, I’m right here,” he says, soft, like he’s trying to calm a spooked animal. His hands are still on your shoulders, but he’s easing back, giving you space. You find the will to breathe out, a stuttering thing. “Not going anywhere. I promise. Just breathe. Take it slow.”   
  
You’re gripping his wrist with your left hand, hard enough that it has to hurt, has to be bruising him. His bones creak under your fingers and you force yourself to let go, force yourself to look up at him as you swallow down another breath.   


The lights are off, but you have no trouble seeing in the dark and neither does Rogers, so you catch his gaze easily, insides twisting painfully when you see the look on his face, soured with something close to grief.

“How long have you been—” you swallow hard. “Sitting there.”

The answer is caught in his throat. His hand moves from your shoulder to your bicep, running over it gently. Up and down, up and down. “A while,” he admits. “You were screaming. Been trying to wake you up.”   
  
You don’t want to know exactly how long it took. You shut your eyes for a moment, some horrible combination of anger, lingering fear, and humiliation swirling in your throat. There’s a fine tremor running through your entire body, and it refuses to go away. You wonder if this is how Rogers felt when you found him, unraveled and clinging to threads of stability.

“You didn’t have to,” you manage to say, voice reedy and thin. “I would have woken up on my own.”   
  
“I didn’t want you to,” Rogers says in a rush, like he can’t bear to keep the words in any longer. “Wake up alone, I mean.”

Maybe it’s because you’re spiraling, thoughts turning to a disjointed mess, but it cuts you to the core. Leave you blindsided.

“You didn’t have to,” you repeat, shake your head.

Rogers shakes his head, barely visible. “You helped me,” he says. “You’ve already done so much for me, it’s only fair I do the same for you.”   
  
“You already have.”   
  
It barrels out of your mouth before you can stop it, and you almost hate that it’s true. Rogers was the catalyst for your escape. Rogers was the key to the memories locked away in your head.

Your time with him is making you feel less like a thing, less like a ghost inhabiting an unwitting body. It’s making you feel human.

Rogers is staring at you like you’ve shot him all over again, like the world is still crashing and burning around the two of you, and then he’s shifting away from you, easing his hands back.

You sit up quickly. “Wait,” you grit out, catching him by the wrist before he can get too far.

Rogers turns back to look at you, expression drawn tight, concerned gaze running all over you. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says, back to that tone he used when you got your bearings. “I mean it. I’ll stay till you kick me out.”

“I’m not,” you begin, hoarse, forcing yourself to meet his eyes. “Gonna kick you out.”

You wonder what it means as you say it, and you seem to realize it just as Rogers does, and he lets out a breath before he looks away, just for a moment.

“You’re not backing me into a corner,” you tell him firmly, already knowing what he’s thinking. “I told you I have my head on straight.”

That eases his worries. Partially, at least, because his laugh is a nervous, humorless huff before he nods. There’s something like relief sagging in his shoulders. Maybe he needs this, too.

“If you change your mind, I’ll leave,” Rogers says instead of just agreeing like anyone else would.

“Fine. Now get in,” you say, jerk your head toward the space beside you. The nightmare clings to you like a wet sheet, close and confining. “Come on, Rogers, I’m fucking freezing.”

You are. You’re chilled to the bone, hands shaking with it. You feel like your nail beds might have turned blue with it.

Rogers looks like he wants to speak, but he closes his mouth, and then he’s getting up and sitting on the other side of the bed, stiff in his movements as he slips under the covers beside you, lying flat on his back, almost mirroring your position.

You watch him from the corner of your eye, feel his body radiating warmth even though you’re not touching. The bed isn’t enormous, but it’s enough for two people to sleep comfortably.

If you can sleep at all.   
  
“You okay?” Rogers asks, so low you almost miss it.   
  
You nod.   
  
“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t get much sleep either,” Rogers says. “Three, four hours a night. Usually wake up a lot through that.”   
  
“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” you say, maybe too irritably.

Nothing, and then a whisper of sheets as Rogers tries and fails to get comfortable. His elbow bumps against your arm, for less than a second and then it’s gone.

You wonder how often he’s woken up alone, shaking off a nightmare, screams caught behind his teeth. Did he dream of the crash, of the war? Did he dream of Brooklyn, scattered and senseless as the past and the present mingled into incoherence?   
  
Did he dream of you?

When you look over at him, he’s looking back at you. He’s close, close enough for you to feel his breath tickling your face

“I’ll wake you up if I gotta,” Rogers says, breaking the silence that’s fallen between you.

You nod. “Yeah, me too,” you say and turn around, facing the door, pulling the quilt up over your shoulders.

The bed dips and sways when Rogers does the same, and the warmth of his back is closer than you thought it was, almost pressing up against yours. You aren’t sure who moved first, but you can’t bring yourself to care.

“Rogers,” you mutter. “Hey.”

Rogers doesn’t answer. His breaths rise and fall in sync with your own, and you’re tempted to say his name again, to break the silence that’s fallen between the two of you, but you’re far too aware of how warm it is under the covers, how the roaring in your ears has stopped, the nightmare’s feeble grip finally falling away from you.

For a while you stay in your position. Eyes open, watching the door as you listen to the sound of his breaths, all smooth silence without the hint of a wheeze or a rattle.

Before you can tell yourself that doesn’t happen anymore, you fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Нет, стой, отойди от меня, пожалуйста, отойди от меня = No, stop, get away from me, please, get away from me


	9. Chapter 9

Your sleep is dark and heavy, and only interrupted when a glimpse of the sunrise blinds you, leaves you squeezing your eyes shut, pulling the quilt further up your body, up to your nose as you stifle a groan.

The night rushes back with a roil of emotion you can’t quite put a label on. Something like relief tainted with guilt. The nightmare is so far off now. All the details are slipping into obscurity, but the chill of it remains, sticks stubbornly enough to make your skin prickle uncomfortably all over again.

You open your eyes. Rogers is still dead to the world, sleeping on his side, and facing away from you just like before, though he evidently scooted closer at some point. It’s far from confining, however. It’s steadying you. Bringing back the relief you felt the night before, when the bed dipped with his weight and and you tumbled into sleep so quickly you didn’t even realize it.

For a moment, you’re assaulted with memories of sharp elbows and knees digging into your ribs, of a body half on top of your own. A rattling chest rumbling against the flat of your palm while you counted every breath that wheezed its way out of him.

The bed creaks as Rogers turns over, facing you, breathing out in a warm rush. His face is slack and soft, devoid of any tension for once. You resist the urge to reach out and touch him; to run your finger between his eyes and over the bumpy, crooked bridge of his nose. You don’t want to wake him. You don’t want the day to begin just yet.

You’d rather stay here, in this strange, silent place where the world feels so far away. Here, there are no consequences. Here, you won’t have to wonder what your actions mean, what Rogers’ actions mean.

So, you reach forward and rest your hand on his bicep. You can’t feel much, but it’s impossible to miss the way he shifts, his knee bumping against yours as he moves even closer, sharing his body heat with you and chasing the last of the cold away. His forehead bumps against yours. You watch his eyes moving under his lids, the thick line of his lashes against his cheeks.   
  
This is better, you think. This is much better than facing away from him. avoiding touching. Rogers smells of warmth, of sleep and laundry detergent. You don’t expect it to be comforting. 

You fall asleep once again, even faster than before.

-

The second time you wake, it’s to rain pounding down on the windows.

You shove your hair, long since slipped out of its tie, out of your eyes and reach out only to find nothing but emptiness. Rogers’ side of the bed is still warm, very warm, like he’s only just gotten up.

With a huff, you flop onto your back and open your eyes. According to the clock, it’s a quarter to three.

Almost fourteen hours of sleep, not counting the time before your nightmare. Fourteen hours of sleep, mostly uninterrupted.

You aren’t sure how you feel. Your head is heavy, thoughts muzzy and bordering on incoherent, but it’s not a terrible thing. Your limbs aren’t stiff like you expected. They’re loose and soft, like a balm has been rubbed into every sore muscle you have. Even your neck is devoid of the knots you’ve grown used to. You didn’t realize any of it hurt until it stopped hurting.

Faintly, you can hear the shower running.

You’d think on it, consider knocking and making sure Rogers hasn’t had a repeat of the night before, but there’s a whiff of something hot and smooth in the air, panging at the pit of your stomach in a pleasant way. You’re craving whatever it is.   
  
When you glance at the bedside table, a steaming mug of coffee is waiting for you.   
  
You take it and cup it in your hands, keep it closing to you. You let the heat of it bleed into the flesh of your right palm, into the space just beside your heart.

The sip you take from it isn’t too hot. It’s dark and comforting, with a faint acridness you’re beginning to associate with Rogers’ pots. It’s not so bad anymore, just different compared to yours. He likes things a little bitter, you think. He was never one to have much of a sweet tooth, and he only ever reserved that for special occasions.

You let your gaze slide to the cracked open door, to the shut bathroom door where steam spills from the gap.

Once again, you think of how easy it would be to join him, but don’t move a muscle. This time, it’s because you’re too comfortable to do so.

-

Rogers must feel your eyes on him when he eventually walks past you, towel around his waist and back shiny with water, because otherwise he’d glance into your room, check to see whether you’re sleeping or not.

When you drain your mug, you almost want to refill it, but that’s when you become aware of the tackiness of sweat in your hair, the way your clothes feel uncomfortable and twisted up.

You strip naked in the bathroom while the tub fills, and when you sink into the hot, sudsy water, you submerge yourself completely, eyes shut as bubbles whiz softly in your ears. 

You feel as if you’re floating in the ocean, something you think you’ve only done contentedly under a boiling sun with the lingering taste of sugar on your tongue and a scorching tan on your skin. If you think hard enough, you can almost imagine waves lapping at you, rocking your body with every one that laps to shore.

It feels even better when you come up for air. You’re left raw and awake, skin flushed with heat, hair slick against your head, plastering to your neck. All you can hear is the storm raging outside, the water droplets from your hair falling into the tub in a constant, pattering rhythm.

In your room, you sit on the bed in clean clothes and rub your hair dry with a towel, comb it out and find it dries in stubborn waves, not like the tangles you were growing used to. It’s softer to the touch, easier to manage now. Yes, you still look worn and pale, but you’re not unkempt. Not gaunt and lifeless with an empty gaze.

You feel less like you’re wearing a person suit, less like you’re detached from your emotions because you’re far too aware of them now, far too aware of what you feel and what you might want and it’s new. So very new, and you’re almost afraid to prod at yourself too much, to let your mind wander if it only brings you bad memories rather than good ones.

It takes a moment to center yourself. You try to focus on the bare walls, the green quilt on the bed, your notebook on the dresser, as you try not to think about anything in particular and breathe out slowly.

You snatch your your empty mug from the nightstand before you make your way to the kitchen. And even on the stairs, you hear Rogers before you see him. You can hear the dull scratch of an ink pen against paper, and then the click of it against the table. He’s sat at the breakfast nook, neck craned down at the page he’s working on. His hair has dried messily, loose and soft, and with the way he’s sitting, you can see a divot at the base of his skull, right against his hairline.   
  
Something tells you to touch it. 

Something tells you it won’t be the first time if you do.

You make your footsteps heavier as you move into the kitchen, and you find coffee still simmering on the stove. You fill your cup up and set the pot down with a clink.

Rogers stops what he’s doing and looks up. He’s wearing a soft grey sweatshirt and jeans. His eyes are clear and open when he meets yours, devoid of dark circles for once.

“Hey, you’re awake,” he says. “You sleep okay?”   


You watch him as you take a sip from your coffee, just a touch too hot. “Did you?” you ask.

It’s like you’re testing one another, seeing who will crack first and mention the night before.

“Yeah,” Rogers says quietly, almost to himself. “Actually, I did.”   
  
You didn’t need him to tell you that. Didn’t need to know, because you felt the way his body relaxed so easily against yours, but now you know he was aware of it, too. He must have had to slip out from under your hold when he awoke. He had to move with care to make sure you didn’t wake up.   
  
Strangely, the thought makes your chest swell.

You nod. “Me too,” you tell him, and watch him turn back to his half blank page, shoulders a bit looser than before.

-

There isn’t much talk after that, but it’s...companionable. You don’t feel uncomfortable, you don’t feel like you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, and that makes it all the more strange.

Time slips when you grab another book from Natalia’s shelf, and find it’s much more engaging than your previous choice. You don’t think about anything but the words on the page and the story unfolding in your mind as you slump into the sofa. Your feet end up on the coffee table at some point, and you’re only half aware of draining your coffee all over again, tasting the dark smoothness of it in the back of your throat.

Rogers disappears eventually, but it’s only to talk to Wilson. It seems less like business and more like a social call, because when he returns, there’s no tension to his shoulders, no pinch to his expression. He simply sits back in the armchair closest to the window, and a moment passes before you hear the scratch of his pencil once more.

“Wilson’s in New York, too, huh,” you mutter without looking up.

From the corner of your eye, you can see Rogers nod. “For now, yeah, he’s in New York,” he answers. “Trying to keep a low profile, keep away from his house in case anyone’s...” he exhales through his nose, slow and sharp. “I don’t want him getting caught in the crossfire.”

You hum. “Because he wouldn’t have thought of doing that himself,” you say drily.

“I didn’t do it because I thought he wouldn’t,” Rogers argues. “Sam and I aren’t that different. If we were switched around, he would have wanted to do the same, and Christ, I’m doing it ‘cause I care about him, not because I’m obligated to.”

This is a touchy subject, then. You narrow your eyes at him and rest your book on your stomach, looking him over for a moment.

“So, that’s how it is,” you say without any heat. “The two of you.”   
  
Rogers must catch on quickly, because he flounders when he meets your eyes, and then turns red from the tips of his ears to the line of his throat. “What?” he blurts out. “No! For the love of—no, it ain’t like that with us.”

You arch a brow at him. “I don’t know about that, Rogers,” you say. “You’re getting pretty red.”

That only seems to make things worse. “Jesus, James,” Rogers mutters, fruitlessly trying to busy himself all over again.

“Hey, I’m not judging you, he’s a good-looking guy,” you say, and some part of you is almost relieved you can get a rise out of him, that his careful responses are slipping. “No harm, no foul, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“It’s not like that with us,” Rogers repeats hastily. “And I’m fine with that. Look, some stuff happened between us, but we figured we’re better off as friends. Nothing else happened, and I really don’t think it’s ever going to go anywhere else.”   


He seems pent up with the confession. The way he hastily runs his hand through his hair, smoothing it back from his brow, is familiar. Almost endearing, but you try not to pay that part any mind.

“And you don’t want it to,” you say. It’s almost a question, but not quite.

Rogers shakes his head. “I thought I did,” he says, and some of your good humor has shriveled away. “He did, too. He’s… he lost someone, too. And he’s working through it better than I am, so friends it is.”   
  
The memory of a red dress in a smoky bar resurfaces, whiskey mingled with the spicy, floral smell of perfume that would have no doubt sent a shiver through you if the world hadn’t been tilted and spun around violently on its axis, landing you in a world akin to being on the inside of a funhouse mirror.   
  
“So, Wilson, Carter,” you muse, the name returning as easily as anything. “You pass up on a lot of opportunities, you know.”   
  
“Peggy I didn’t stand a chance with,” Rogers says, and there’s the ghost of a smile on his lips. “I never wanted a chance, either. She was a hell of a woman, still is, but she didn’t need someone like me dousing her fire.”

Peggy Carter is a hazy memory to begin with, and for the life of you, you can’t picture her as anything but the fresh-faced, quick thing smashed into the back of a speedboat with you, pointing out a fleck of blood on your cheek. You think you liked her, admired her after a while once you were sure of—

“And how were you gonna do that?” you ask, just to pull yourself out of your thoughts, if only for a moment.

“I have a lot of baggage,” Rogers says. “Or so the saying goes.”   


You shake your head, rest it back against the sofa. “Rogers, if you have baggage, I have a storage unit,” you say. “So, enough with the dramatics already.”

It eases some of the tension between you, and he cracks a real smile at you, one that reminds you of split knuckles and blackened eyes, and a flood of warmth you can’t bear to put a label on.

“Guess you’re never not gonna be busting my chops,” Rogers says, mostly to himself, and he’s ducking his head down again, busying himself before either of you can say anything else, but you won’t let him weasel away so easily.

You watch him for a moment, take in the sight of him—the crooked line of his nose, the way the pale grey light turns his hair and eyes lighter than usual, more washed out. The rain doesn’t suit him, the gloom doesn’t suit him. 

If you were an artist, you’d think he needs to be painted in warm colors, in molten yellows and golds, blues and pinks and soft peaches. 

But you were never the artist, you think. It was always him, so what were you? Who were you before and who were you supposed to be if life had run its course the way it should have?

“You told me you’d tell me everything,” you begin, just loud enough for Rogers to hear. “That night we…” 

You don’t finish, swallowing around nothing instead, but Rogers understands. Of course he understands.

“I know,” Rogers says quietly. “I know I did.”

“So, tell me,” you say. “From the beginning.”

Rogers must have been holding his breath, because it puffs out in a rush before he nods, expression caught between relief and misery. “It’s gonna take a while,” he says. “We were seven and eight when we met.”   
  
You shrug one shoulder. “I have time.”

-

It takes a while.

First, he tells you about the window of time before he met you, about being the smallest in his class and the smallest of all the children in the tenements on his block, how he had the faintest Irish lilt from spending so much time inside with his mother or with their neighbors when her shift began at the hospital. 

You can almost picture her pinning her hair in place, pulling her coat on before smoothing Rogers’ bangs from his forehead and saying  _ don’t wait up for too long, little love  _ before she left and walked off into the cool evening air while Rogers watched her from the window.

After that, it isn’t much longer before you come into the picture.

That’s when Rogers huffs something like a laugh. “You know, I can’t even remember why the fight started,” he says. “All I remember is being in that alley swinging at the Winslow twins and going down hard before you showed up.”

The memory peels you open and scoops your insides out. “I was on my way home,” you say, sounding distant even to your own ears. You look anywhere but Rogers’ face—his hand, his knee, the shell of his ear. “Passed that alley every day but I never heard any ruckuses going on till then.”

Rogers isn’t looking at you either. It feels like you’re talking at each other rather than to each other. Maybe it’s easier this way. Easier to do this while pretending the other isn’t here.

“Keep going,” you tell him. “Your story, anyway. Not mine.”

Hesitance passes over his face. He wants to disagree with you, but he continues instead, hands clasping in front of him, notebook long since abandoned. “All I know is that you took down all three of them. Tommy Corcoran and the twins. They went down like sacks of bricks and ran with their tails between their legs, and all I could think was that I could’ve took them without your help. I was so damn mad at you, but then you helped me up and when you introduced yourself, you told me I could…” he looks different for a moment, impossibly young and decades old at the same time. He must feel that way, too. “You told me only your friends called you Bucky, and that I could call you that, too.”

You aren’t sure if you’re remembering, or if Rogers has a way with words and the scene is simply unfolding in your head, but at the same time, you can feel the sting on your knuckles and the scrapes on your knees and see Rogers’ scrawny little face, barely any baby fat on him due to how little food made it to the table.

“Guess I liked you right away if I told you that,” you mutter.

“Guess so,” Rogers echoes. “You know, I just realized I don’t know how you got to be Bucky. I always thought it was ‘cause of Buchanan, but I never asked.”

“It’s ‘cause of Rebecca,” you say, the words tumbling so easily from your lips it almost surprises you, but you’ve been in the process of remembering her, remembering the family you lost. “She came up with it when she was little, and it stuck. Used to ask my...used to ask my ma what it meant and she always told me it meant handsome.”   
  
Rogers’ smile is miserable, and doesn’t reach his eyes. “Sounds like something she’d say,” he says. “She’s—you two were close, and you were a lot alike her. Still are.”

You’ve already remembered snatches of her, but it’s hard to let the memories in, even though you want them. You want them desperately.

Memories were never something to be held onto, not until now. They weren’t meant to be binding, or to give you clarity. The only clarity you ever knew was the blank slate The Chair left you with, the sedatives pumping through you before you were sealed away again, but The Chair was destroyed by none other than you. There are no cryo tanks or handlers here, and no more blood on your hands.

And now, you have no reason to deny that you remember your family. You remember your mother. You remember the father you barely knew, but you remember his grave more than anything else. 

You remember your sister. Stubby arms and curly hair and missing teeth and eyes identical to your own, then a gangly body with dark hair pulled into victory rolls. Scraped knees and then a white, lacy dress, a veil over her face. Her arm locked tight with yours. You danced with her, the jacket of your dress uniform abandoned on a chair due to the lingering September heat. You were a little drunk, you think, grinning from ear to ear.  _ You’re the one who taught her to dance. _

You liked to dance. Loved it, even. You loved the rhythm in your body and you loved to swing girls around a dance hall until they were pink-cheeked with exertion, until your hearts were racing through song after song.

You remember teaching someone else how to dance, firmer hands with long fingers and fair, floppy bangs, rolling eyes and big, clumsy feet stomping on your own and that’s not Rebecca at all anymore, no, that’s not Rebecca at all.

A smudge of paint as red as blood, refusing to budge when you wiped it away. A song, familiar and warm in your throat.  _ Some day, when I’m awfully low… _

You run your hand over your cheek with an audible rasp of stubble. “So,” you begin, trying to quell the slow, simmering anger in the pit of your stomach. “Are you gonna tell me what happened to them or not?”

Rogers wasn’t expecting that, because when he says, “I,” and sounds like he’s been punched. “Look, I don’t—”   
  
“Just tell me,” you press. “Tell me what happened. Treat it like a goddamn Band-Aid, Rogers. I gotta know.”

“James, they…” Rogers says quietly. His adam’s apple bobs hard as he swallows. “They passed. They both did. Your ma left in ‘65, and Becca left in 2000.”

In 1965, you were in cryo, and wouldn’t be brought out for another two years. You know this because of the long stretch of time between missions. You were awoken in ‘67.   
  
In 2000, you were put into another tank and taken to the United States for good, stored in a bank vault until you were to be useful once more.

“It’s not that I wanted to keep it from you, I just wasn’t sure when to tell you,” Rogers says thickly. You pretend not to notice the way he runs his palms over his eyes when he runs them over his face. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, James. I wish I knew what to say.”   
  
“There’s nothing to say,” you tell him, already rising to your feet. “There’s nothing to say, Rogers.”

“Wait, just—”   
  
“I’ll be back,” you say in a rush. You’re halfway across the room when you shakily add, “Don’t follow me.”

Even to you, it sounds off. Like you’re not entirely there. For the first time since your escape, you feel disconnected from your body. Your blood feels slushy and cold, insides twisting painfully. You feel like you’re going to be sick, even when no vomit rises up your throat.

Rogers doesn’t follow you, doesn’t say a word or try to stop you in your tracks. It’s deafeningly quiet, save for the way your door shuts behind you. A short, loud slam that rings through your ears.

With that, you expect something inside of you to crack open. You expect to cry, to feel angry, or feel grief welling up in your chest, squeezing your heart in a vise, but as hard as you try to will it all to the surface, nothing happens.

You wait, and wait, and wait, but nothing happens.

-

No memories come to you, at least none you can write down. 

You can recall the feeling of fatigue in your bones on an early Sunday morning, sat in a pew between Rebecca and Ma, but you can’t put it into words. You can’t do anything but sit in the same spot on the floor, back against the door as the rain ceases and begins again, the clouds only growing thicker and darker.

Rogers knocks on the door. You can feel it vibrate through your spine.

“I know you told me not to follow you,” Rogers begins weakly.

“Also knew you weren’t gonna listen,” you say, just loud enough for him to hear.   
  
“Can I come in?” he asks.   
  
“Door’s blocked.”

“With what?”   
  
“I’m two hundred pounds, Rogers,” you say. “I can make a damn good barricade if I want to.”

You scoot to the side, however, resting your back up against the wall. Rogers must see you move from the gap in the bottom of the door, because he opens it gingerly, just enough that you can only see one half of his face.

You grit your teeth as you meet his gaze. “You can stay,” you mutter. “Just shut the door behind you.”

All you recieve in response is a nod before he does as you say and then he lowers himself to sit beside you, mirroring your position—knees half-pulled up toward his chest, arms resting loose on either side of the body. Rogers’ hand is splayed next to yours, the flesh and blood of it jarring beside your whirring silver plates and sharp, smooth wrist joints.

“I don’t know how to mourn my own family,” you say after a long stretch of silence. “They took that from me, too.”

It must sound as helpless, as pitiful as it feels.

“They took everything from me,” you rasp. Your jaw clenches so tightly it hurts. “And I want it  _ back _ . Good or bad, I don’t fucking care, because it’s mine to keep. It’s my grief, it’s my love, it’s my hate, it’s my pain, it’s all  _ mine _ and I want it all  _ back _ .”

You try to swallow down a breath but it turns ragged, gets stuck somewhere in your chest, which feels as thin and fragile as an eggshell, prepared to cave in. You try again and fail, find it growing more urgent with every quickening beat of your heart. “You don’t know how badly I want to remember,” you tell him. “Rebecca, Ma, you, you’re all locked up in my head, but I don’t know how to let you out.”

Rogers doesn’t say a word. You’d be grateful for it if he wasn’t looking at you as raw as he is, all molten emotion written all over his face. You’d be even more grateful if you knew how to look away.

“James—”   
  
“Stop,” you snarl. “ _ Calling _ me that. I know you don’t wanna fucking call me that.”

“You asked me to,” Rogers counters, but there’s no malice behind his words. “I’m only doing it ‘cause you asked.”

“But I know you don’t call me that in your head,” you say. Your eyes feel hot when you narrow them, but your vision doesn’t smudge or blur. “Can barely say it out loud ‘cause it makes you feel like you’re looking at a ghost.”

When Rogers breathes out, sharp and short, it sounds like you’ve punched him. He’s reeling like he’s somehow been caught in a lie, and you’re not sure if that’s the case or not. Not sure if something is going wrong.

“No,” Rogers murmurs. “No, that’s not...I don’t feel like I’m looking at a ghost. I felt like I was when I saw you on the bridge because I didn’t know  _ what _ I was seeing, but I can see you now. I see you, and I see how much you’re changing, how much you’re remembering already. It’s not all gone, it’s just hidden and you’re finding it. You’ve been picking up the pieces all this time, you’re just not letting yourself see that because you think it’ll get taken from you again, but that’s not gonna happen.”

Now, he’s looking right at you, staring a hole through you, and you can’t look away. You couldn’t if you tried, gaze jumping from his eyes to his chest, rising and falling like he can’t get enough air. 

“I’m not gonna let that happen again,” Rogers finishes, quieter than before. “You got that? I’m not.”

Your breathing is just as heavy, short and labored. You swallow, lick your dry lips, and find that you’re clutching at the carpet beneath you, nails scratching against it. “Nice of you,” you mutter, and find that you believe it as the words fall from your lips. “But it’s not gonna bring the guy you knew back.”   
  
“I know,” Rogers says. “But you’re alive. That’s the only thing that matters to me.”

He says it with so much conviction, with so much emotion, you think you believe him. He looks like he’s going to burst with it, eyes roaming over your face like you’re something precious to him.

You have to look away, escape from it somehow. You feel like you’re going to burst with everything welling up inside of you.

“I slept right through it,” you mutter, each word becoming thicker, raspier. “I was in goddamn  _ storage _ .”

For a moment, you think you’re laughing. Laughing at the absurdity of it all, but you taste salt on your lips, feel the wetness of tears on your face, the twisting, burning pain in the core of you, radiating through your entire body.

So, you can mourn after all.

You run your palms over your face in an attempt to wipe it all away, but it doesn’t work. The grief refuses to budge. The tears refuse to stop. You’ve been flayed to the bone, and Rogers can see every horrible, rotten part of you.

“Get out,” you say, muffled against your palm. “Get the fuck out.”   
  
“No,” Rogers says, voice raw and low in his chest.

It jars you enough that you turn to face him. You’re angry, and yet you’re not. You want to shove him out the door and slam it in his face, and lock him in here with you while you force yourself to face this.   
  
His eyes are as wet as yours, expression pained, like you’re digging a bullet out of him with your bare hands. “You didn’t leave me when I lost my only family,” he says. “Even when I tried to force you to, so I’m not leaving you when you lost yours.”   
  
You want to say they’ve  _ been _ lost, that they’ve  _ been _ dead, it’s just that you were the last to know, but you can’t. You can’t say it. The words stick in your throat and refuse to budge.   
  
“You stubborn piece of shit,” you choke. “You stubborn  _ fucking _ —”

Another sob rips out of you. This time, it hurts. This time, you feel yourself crumble with it, weighed down by your own grief, and you don’t want him to see this. You don’t want him to see you, but it’s too late now, he’s already seen too much. 

You don’t pull away when you become aware of how you’ve collapsed prostrate, half against him, clutching at his knee like a lifeline. You don’t pull away when his arms wrap around you and pull you close, fingers threading through your hair, breath hot on the top of your head, the nape of your neck, when he rests his face there.

His voice is muffled because of it, but you feel it vibrating against your skin as he says  _ I’m sorry, God, Buck, I’m sorry,  _ over and over again. He’s clutching at you just as urgently as you are him, and you don’t want him to let go.

You won’t be able to bear it if he lets go.

-

You aren’t sure how long you stay that way, aren’t sure how much time passes before you’re able to breathe again, but even then, you don’t move, and neither does Rogers. It’s like this has seeped the strength from both of you, and you’re unable to disentangle from one another. Unable to even consider trying.

It’s hard not to feel exposed, to feel like you’ve let him get too close, but you’ve already seen him at his weakest so many times now, seen as much of him as he’s seen of you, so you’ll let yourself have this. It’s almost a kindness, to not be alone in the thick of your pain, to have him help you carry the weight of it, even if it’s only for now.

-

When the worst of it passes, a cold slowness overtakes you. It’s not so different from being freed from The Chair, devoid of your memories. Maybe that would be a mercy now, to forget it all again. Erase the grief, erase the misery.

It’s only a fleeting thought, anyway. You wouldn’t ever go back, but the thought of being freed of your recovered memories is comforting. You almost feel guilty thinking about it. Almost.

At some point, you find the motivation to move, and it’s only to rinse the mess off your face, to pull your hair out of your eyes and into a hair tie. You look rough. Eyes bloodshot and red-rimmed, skin too pale, looking grey in the gloomy light filtering in through the windows. You’re almost grateful your stubble is turning to a beard, that you can’t see your own miserable, twisted up expression in full.

All of this is done with a numb sort of weariness, your body taking control because your mind is too useless to do anything else. It’s maintenance, but the only difference is that you’ve become your own handler. The thought of that is enough to cut through the haze, to make you think that’s not the case at all.

Somehow, you find your way back to the bedroom. You think Rogers tries to talk to you, think he tries to say something with a voice that sounds like sandpaper, but you crawl back under the covers instead, feeling worn thin. Like you’ve been picked open and scraped at and all your wounds are on full display.

The rain gets worse, slamming against the windows. The numbness in the core of you only grows more prominent.


	10. Chapter 10

You’re hovering somewhere between awareness and unconsciousness. 

You hear every single noise in the cabin. You hear every careful step Rogers takes, every time he stops in the doorway and the floorboards creak, like he almost takes a step inside but thinks better of it.

A migraine sharpens behind your eyes. The light reflecting through your eyelids grows dimmer and dimmer until it isn’t there at all. Soon enough, it’s gone completely.

You think you might dream. Of Rebecca, of Ma, of yourself with two flesh hands and a tailored uniform, standing in a crowded train station far away from them, trying to call their names and get closer to them, but they keep moving farther away, just out of your grasp. Your lungs turn to husks every time you try to speak.

It becomes nothing at all after that—just more darkness while your other senses are overwhelmed. The smell of cigarette smoke and perfume, of turpentine and washing powder, aftershave and pomade, the stink of dead fish and seawater. You hear car horns and drunks, but know you’re too far away from the world to hear any of that. The real things you hear are rainfall, rumbling thunder, and your own breathing, slow and deep despite everything.

Your eyes flip open abruptly, leaving you disoriented. Unsure of where you are, when you are, but you feel the firmness of a bed beneath your back and the persistent ache in your head. It’s enough to ground you, to help you remember.

You’re in Hedgesville, West Virginia. You’re in hiding. You’re safe.

As safe as you can be, even though you feel irritated and raw from the inside out, like the very fibres of you want to grieve all over again.

You can see the clock on the wall, just barely, and find that it’s two in the morning. The bed is unusually warm, and you quickly realize why when you see the body close to yours.

Rogers is lying on his stomach, arms circling his pillow, face tilted toward the window. His breathing is slow and too measured, shoulders rising and falling tensely.

“You didn’t have to stay here,” you say, voice thick and muzzy with sleep, low in your throat.

You get nothing in response. Nothing until his shoulders stall in place, until he turns his head to face you. “I don’t mind it,” he mutters. “But if you want me to go, I will.”

You can barely see him, even with your sharpened senses. His face is pinched with a frustrated sort of tiredness, like he’s been trying and failing to sleep for hours.

The bed creaks when you shift to lie on your back. “No point,” you tell him, shutting your eyes. “I know you haven’t been getting any sleep in there, anyway.”   


Rogers hums softly, an affirmation of your suspicions. “I didn’t stay alone often,” he says. “My old place only had one bedroom, and even when I moved to the sofa, it’s not like I had a lot of solitude. Then I lived with you, then slept in army barracks, then shared a tent, slept in shifts during a stakeout. I didn’t realize it until I was living alone for the first time.”   
  
You wish you had such an excuse. Behind your closed eyes, you can see the apartment you grew up in and faintly recall having a bedroom to yourself, having your own space until you moved out, until you lived in a little matchbox of a place with a faulty radiator. You can almost hear the rasp of metal against wood as you shoved two twin beds together when the temperatures dropped and everything was done to keep the cold out.

So, it’s not that you aren’t used to sleeping alone. 

You aren’t used to sleeping without  _ him _ . 

A few days ago, you wouldn’t have admitted that to yourself. You didn’t want that connection to him, or at least, you thought you didn’t. Your programming tried and failed to get the better of you, and you didn’t allow it to.

“Well,” you say. “Glad I could be of service.”

There’s a soft huff of Rogers’ breath that might be a laugh. “Jerk,” he says. “Such a jerk.”

“So, we’re on the same page,” you say. It’s a distraction. You’d prefer this to falling back into a repeat of earlier today. “If you said I was nice, I’d say you’re dumber than I thought.”   
  
Rogers elbows you in the ribs, just a light prod, but you shove him off anyway. “Real sweet,” you mutter, turn your head to look at him. “What a stand-up guy that Captain America is.”   


You ignore the faint thrum of fondness in your chest, the relief that he’s not tip-toeing around you. It makes you feel a little less horrible.

A long silence follows. You’re beginning to feel the cold, detachment you drifted off with settle in again. You’re aware of how close he is to you, his knee mere inches away from your own, but you’ve already seen too much of each other, already became aware of the all-encompassing thing tugging you closer, so it’s fruitless to avoid it now.

Rogers’ bedside lamp clicks on and you squint against it for only a moment, eyes adjusting quickly. It’s not that bright. It’s dim and warm, almost soothing. Besides, you can see him now, mirroring your position—lying on his back, arms at his sides.

“You know, I woke up to everyone I knew being gone, too,” he says after a while. It’s quiet and careful, measured, but it sounds like it hurts anyway. “Jim, Monty, Gabe, Dum-Dum, Dernier. You were gone, Winnie and Becca were gone. There was no one left but me, and I felt like my memories were all I had. I still do. Peggy’s alive, but...by the time I found out, it just felt like I was losing her every time I saw her, and God, I know how bad it sounds, but it almost made me wish she was gone, too.”

You say nothing, just let your gaze slide over him. His eyes are shadowed and heavy, body taut like a rubber band, waiting to snap.

“I don’t want you to feel like you’re alone, James” Rogers continues, meeting your eyes. “Whatever you do from here, wherever you go, just know you don’t have to be alone.”

It makes your throat tight all over again, and you swallow hard against it, scrub your hands over your face, which feels prickly all over, before you rest them over your chest, wring them together before you can do anything foolish.

“It’s not that I wish they were here,” you say. It’s almost painful to speak. Your throat is protesting, trying to lock up on you. “I wouldn’t want to find them just to lose them, and—” you breathe out, swallow around the thick swell. “I wouldn’t want them to see me like this. I’d rather they died remembering me the way I was.”

It’s the truth, and a preferable one. 

Ma died remembering you as her son, remembered you as unburdened because you know you never gave the hint that the war haunted you, even when she must have known. Rebecca died remembering you as the brother she could rely on, as the man who walked her down the aisle, who taught her how to dance, to better her penmanship, to throw a punch. Someone she could trust and be trusted by in return.

You don’t remember much of the Howling Commandos, or the people you must have known back when you had a place to call home, but you’re glad they remembered you as you were, too.

At least you have that knowledge. At least you have that as a balm over some of your wounds.

Rogers only nods. “Yeah, me too,” he mutters. “Me too.”

You hum. “And I thought you were gonna fight me on it,” you say.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Rogers says quietly. There’s a rueful tinge to his smile, not quite reaching his eyes. “I know that feeling too well. I’m glad there was someone out there who remembered me as...me.”

Meaning Sarah Rogers, meaning everyone else he knew throughout his short life, before he stumbled out of a machine in a new body and thrust into a war he couldn’t win.

You let your eyes linger on him, choosing your words carefully. You’re torn between giving in and closing off, but the part of you that’s been clawing its way to the surface gets his way and makes you say, “I remember you the way you were.”   
  
It’s not so much of a realization as it is a reassurance, and bewilderment crosses over Rogers’ face, brows drawing together. “You don’t gotta say that,” he says. “Not if—”   
  
“I’m just stating the facts,” you cut in. “And we both know you’re not easy to forget. You’re still you. You’re still the same.”

It surprises you, the weight of the words. Your chest is tight with them, heart beating a little faster than before.

Rogers swallows hard and he averts his gaze, breathes out hard. “For a guy who keeps insisting the opposite about himself, you seem pretty sure,” he tries to say wryly, but he’s failing. You’re both having trouble putting up fronts now that you’ve been flayed to the bone, facing everything you’ve been avoiding head-on instead of avoiding it.

“Maybe I’m not the only one who needs convincing,” you say. “But I know I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t true.”

Rogers stalls for only a moment, not moving away from your touch. He wants to say something, but the words are stuck behind his teeth.

“And the thing is, I’m not sure of anything aside from that,” you continue. Instead of reaching for him, you drop your hands to your sides, under the covers as your fingers twist into the sheets. “I feel like I’m remembering the important things. I remember you, I remember Ma and Rebecca, how we grew up, always feeling like the goddamn outsiders wherever we went, but a lot of it feels like it’s gonna slip through the cracks and never come back. I don’t remember what street I grew up on, or where you and I lived. Can’t remember my own goddamn birthday, but I know yours. I don’t remember what I did for a living, what any of us did. It’s—there’s so much I know I won’t get back, and I know I can’t get it all back. At least not now, you don’t gotta tell me that, but what I do know for sure is that you’re the only thing that’s making me believe it all happened. I wouldn’t have remembered this much if you weren’t here.”   


If you hadn’t gone to Rogers, or if he had died on the bank you left him on, it would have taken you months, years, to remember what you’ve already ingrained in your mind as the truth, as a part of you. You would have been grasping at straws, possibly given up and started over, and maybe you would have been better off. A fresh start would have been kinder, but you don’t want to run from what you’ve lost.

Not anymore.

“We didn’t live too far from each other,” Rogers says, pulling you from your thoughts. “You and your family lived on Plymouth Street, and I was on Gold. Best thing about it was that I could walk to your place without worrying if it was gonna wear me out, or meet you outside before school and then walk the same route home. We switched up once a day. You came to my place or I came to yours.”

When you look over at him, you find that he’s staring, eyes looking darker in this light, more alive than usual as they burn through you.   
  
The memory doesn’t unfold in your mind. You can’t picture it, but it sounds right. It feels like the right answer. 

You say nothing and let him continue.

“We ended up living in Red Hook, after the funeral,” he says. “Winnie tried to get me to come stay with the three of you, and even though I wanted to, I didn’t—I didn’t wanna burden any of you, and I had too much to sort through at home, but you wore me down eventually. Found this place that we both could afford, right on Van Brunt Street. We didn’t live far from the shipyard and you worked there for a while till you got fired, then you worked some other odd jobs. Did some repairs in the building and for some of the tenements in the area, but the only one you really liked was working at this bakery around the corner from us. Used to come home with your arms killing you, but you got pretty damn good at making a loaf of bread. Made the building smell less like our neighbor’s food and his cigarettes. I was working at the WPA, doing advertisements around that time and there were so many times we barely saw each other even though we lived in the same apartment, so neither of us got enough sleep most times, just ‘cause it felt like we had to kinda catch up sometimes.”   
  
That feels even more familiar. Working until your entire body throbbed, rain or shine, boiling heat or freezing cold, healthy as a horse or sick as a dog, but that didn’t matter because you got your wages and went home with a little more lightness in your step when you know you were able to afford groceries and put money toward the rent, let some of your worries slip away.

It must have been nice to worry about simpler things, to think missing out on food for a day or two or oversleeping was the worst thing that could happen to you. This means your life was never easy. Maybe you were happy once, but you didn’t have it easy.

The thought of that is strangely comforting.

“Your birthday’s March 10th,” Rogers continues, and there’s something strangled to his tone, but it disappears as quickly as it slipped in. “Your ma made you a chocolate cake every year. Always saved up for the ingredients, even with the rations, till Rebecca took that over, and then you two would just try and one up each other with something new on your birthdays, but she’d always beat you by a mile.”

For a moment, you can’t say anything at all. It’s hard not to stare back at him, to try to figure out what parts of him you remember most vividly. You try not to think of his broken, bloodied face on the helicarrier, or patching it up when it was skinny in a way that meant there wasn’t enough food, weren’t any jobs, and he passed the time by getting into a scrap with whoever looked at him wrong.

“I didn’t think you’d tell me that much,” you say. “It was a lifetime ago.”   
  
Rogers... _ Steve _ shakes his head. You try to make the name stick.  _ Steve, Steve, Steve _ . 

It’s not exactly better, because Rogers feels just as easy, but it is different.

It makes you feel less like you’re strangers.

“It’s only been a few years for me,” he says. “You spent more time awake the past seventy years than I ever did, so it’s gonna feel like a long time, and that’s the truth. It’s been a lifetime, James. We’re...we both lost time. We both lost too damn much. We’re just meeting in the middle now.”

You’re older than him in so many ways. You know that chronologically, that was always the case, but it feels like there are decades between you right now. Like your years have worn you while the ice has only preserved him.  _ Still a kid _ , you think.  _ God, still just a kid. _

Mission after mission, piles upon piles of bodies and endless pools of blood, and Steve still hasn’t seen as much you have. You’re relieved for it. Relieved he only has a few years to heal from. He has a chance.

You, you’re not so sure about.

“Meeting in the middle,” you repeat, try your damnedest not to think about the blood on your hands, even though you know that’s impossible. 

It’s impossible because you were a killer before HYDRA got their hands on you. 

The only difference was that you killed the right people. You gave them what they deserved. 

You remember carving a swastika into the chest of a Nazi’s cooling body, remember feeling sick at the sight of his guts and the sound of his blood squelching with every pull of the knife, his flesh tearing, but that was all you felt. Sickness. Your body reacting rather than your mind, because inside, you felt nothing but a cool stillness.

You didn’t mind killing. You didn’t enjoy it. You knew you wanted to stop one day, get out of the war even though you refused to say it out loud, but you’d grown so used to the chaos and carnage it was hard to get sick over it eventually. Death was a given in any war, but still, it seemed like death followed you around like a shadow until it finally got its hands on you, dragged you down into a snowy hellscape with a broken body and a brain that struggled to recall what a body was at all.

“That’s what I’m hoping, at least,” Steve says quietly, and you’re grateful for the way he stops those memories in their tracks.

You want so badly to look away from him, but you can’t. You feel as stretched thin and helpless as you felt when you let him hold you through your grief, but the realization slips in as easily as the memory of it was taken away. __

“I think you have too much faith in me,” you tell him, not unkindly.   
  
Steve tilts his head, just a little. “Always did.”

All you can say is, “Why?”   
  
“You know why,” he says, soft. “I know you know.”

You’re as far away from his inner circle as you could get. You saved his life twice over and have been locked in a cabin with him for days. You’ve touched him in that time, felt his mouth on yours, saw him stripped raw in the face of his past, remembered wanting him and being wanted by him. You remembered his face better than your own.

Denying you had something with him is pointless now. It was unrequited. Your memories suggest otherwise, the way he kissed you suggests otherwise. The way you sleep easier when he’s there, the way he blindly trusts you despite everything, suggests otherwise.

_ I loved him _ .

You expect it to leave you reeling, to overwhelm you all over again, but it’s almost too easy to accept, to acknowledge as nothing but the truth.

Still, it’s hard to find the right words, hard to do anything but watch him watching you. 

Do you love him now? Have you lost that part of yourself for good? If you can still love your mother and your sister and recall that love easily, if you can do the same with Natalia, with Yelena and Katya and Violetta and all the other little girls you were charged with, why wouldn’t you be able to love someone this way?

If you have anything left from your life, it’s this. It’s  _ him. _

“I’m not asking you for that,” Steve says. “But it’s the truth. I’m not gonna sit here lying to you, James.”   
  
You surprise yourself by shaking your head. “Don’t call me that anymore,” you say.

Steve doesn’t ask why, doesn’t press you for more information. He just says, “Okay. Yeah, whatever you want.”   
  
There’s so much honesty in the way he speaks, so much sureness in it that you faintly think you have to be careful of what you ask him, that there’s not much he’ll say no to when it comes to you.

You nod, then turn over and shift until you can reach past him to click the bedside lamp off. Your chest is pressing against his, and his skin is warm through his shirt. He’s not breathing.   
  
From a gap in the curtain, a strip of silvery moonlight sneaks into the room and casts over his face, turns his skin pale like marble and eyes dark like stone as they roam over your face almost frantically.

You’re taking too long to move, half-draped over him, and your breath is picking up despite the way you will it to slow down. The rain is starting up again, becoming as heavy as it was earlier. 

Even as close as you are, you don’t expect to reach forward.   
  
You don’t plan to bring your hand to his face, to feel the prickle of invisible stubble against your palm and the smooth skin of his cheekbone as you run your thumb over it, or to feel your heart pounding all over again. Steve breathes out, warm and trembling, and it rushes over your wrist. You feel gooseflesh pimple over the skin.

“Bucky,” he says, quiet, like it’s a secret, like he’s hoping you won’t hear it at all.

But you hear it, you hear it and the name sounds right on his lips this time even though it doesn’t feel like it’s yours yet, doesn’t feel like it fits completely, you don’t want him calling you anything else.

So, you nod. 

“That sounds better,” you mutter.

Steve doesn’t move an inch. You watch the line of his throat in the dark, run your thumb under the tender, soft skin beneath his eye, the wrinkle between his furrowed brows, smoothing in measures beneath your touch. Your body doesn’t react to it, not in the way you expect it to. It doesn’t react at all, save for a painful pinch in the center of your chest that isn’t painful at all, just new.

There’s so much you can do. You can trace down toward his mouth, feel the heat of his breath against the pad of your thumb, the soft swell of his lower lip as you trace against it, and he would let you do it. He wouldn’t lift a finger to stop you.

That’s the problem, however. 

You want him to want it, too, not resign himself to it for your sake.

So, you move off of him without a word, hear his breathing pick up all over again, and what he’s thinking. If he’ll ask what you were doing, if he’ll want to talk about it or bring up the kiss, but he doesn’t say a word. In a way, you’re relieved.

You turn onto your side, facing away from him, and feel his gaze burn into the back of your head for a long, long while.

It takes time for him to speak, to stop lying stockstill like a corpse and turn onto his side, to finally say, “Can I ask you something?”

By then, you’re already tumbling into sleep, aware of nothing but the faint echo of his voice, and the warmth of his hand lingering near your arm before it settles into the gap between your bodies.

-

When you wake, it’s with more energy, more awareness than you expect to have, and you can already tell you won’t be able to fall asleep again.

You scrub your hand over your eyes, grimacing at the crust there before you open them, pulling yourself up against the headboard, feeling sluggish and heavy despite the way your brain has come back to life, leaving you feeling sharper than you’ve felt in days.

The rain hasn’t stopped, the morning is as grey as it was the day before, and Steve is still asleep.

He’s lying on his stomach, face turned away from you, one arm hanging off the bed. You can tell by the slowness of his breathing, the laxness to his body, that he won’t be waking up any time soon.

You’ve never seen him like this. In the hospital, he was unconscious, drugged and half-aware. Yesterday, you only caught the sight of him in snatches before you fell asleep moments later. When you wrack your brain for more than a few seconds, you realize he never slept this heavily unless he was sick, and realize you both always had places to be and tended to wake up with a sense of urgency, rushing through the morning and past each other.

Now, he has nowhere to go. Not for a while. So, you’ll let him have this.

You reach forward, swallowing your reservations, preparing to rest your hand over the nape of his neck, impossibly warm. His breaths are slow and deep, smooth without the hint of a wheeze—

And then his phone rings, buzzes hard and loud against the dresser. Your reflexes are quick enough to grab it, to silence it before he can stir.

The screen is bright, the phone sleeker than you expected. The caller ID has only a phone number. The area code is  _ 202 _ .

You leave the room as quietly as you’re able, shutting the door behind you before you answer, hearing nothing but the sounds of a city on the other end—sirens and car horns and the chatter of people, wind blowing through the receiver.

“Steve?” Wilson says. “You there?”   
  
You resist the urge to breathe out, relief washing over you. “Sorry to disappoint,” you say roughly. You clear your throat. “Acting as a temporary secretary."

For a moment, there’s no response, but then he says, “You taking messages, too?”   
  
“Never said I was a good secretary,” you say, descending the stairs silently. “My brain’s swiss cheese, Wilson. Doesn’t really help anyone.”   
  
To your surprise, Wilson—Sam—laughs. You would be bewildered, but it’s a welcome change, being allowed to find some sort of dark amusement in your circumstances. “Okay, you’re...definitely sounding different,” he says. “Better, I mean.”   
  
“You could say that,” you say. “Sounds like you’re on your way somewhere.”   
  
“Just grabbing food. Fucking Midtown, I hate it out here,” Sam says. “Whole city’s a tourist trap now, and I gotta stick around for at least another week, according to our mutual friend.”

You knit your brows together. “I don’t have any friends,” you say.

“Well, according to Nat, then,” Sam says. “Listen, while I’ve got you, I wanted to tell you your intel was good, Barnes. Really good. Handed it off and everything’s getting blown wide open, literally and figuratively.”

The name doesn’t catch you off-guard, doesn’t make you feel like the floor has disappeared under your feet. Perhaps that’s an improvement. A good sign. You could do with one of those. 

“I can give you more,” you say instead of all the redundant things that come to mind. “Whenever you want it. I’m your guy.”   
  
“We already got a tip about a few bases on the West Coast,” Sam says. “So that’s being looked into now. But, yeah, I’ll let you know. Tell Steve no rush on calling me back, I was just checking in.”   
  
Even though he can’t see you, you nod. “Roger that,” you say. “Enjoy your breakfast.”   
  
You hang up before he can say anything else.

It’s not making you edgy, connecting with the outside world, talking to someone who isn’t Steve. Sam isn’t someone you know. Sam isn’t someone you have history with save for the time leading up to now, and the thought of that is...not necessarily bad. You think you could like him if you tried hard enough.

Thinking of what Steve mentioned yesterday doesn’t have an effect on you. It wasn’t something you were able to control, whatever happened between the two of them, but when you force yourself to think on it, you think you’d rather he was with, or tried to be with, Sam than anyone else. Rather than anyone at SHIELD, someone who would have no doubt used him to their advantage, especially when HYDRA had already wanted him so badly.

_ It’s finished _ , you tell yourself, setting the burner phone down and running your hand through your tangled hair.  _ You stopped it. You stopped them from getting to him. _

So, there’s no point thinking about it now. It’s over. HYDRA won’t get to Steve, won’t get to you. Not as long as you stay sharp, ready for anything that might come your way. The North American branch is already being taken care of, one base at a time.

You’ll think of more locations, make your notes more organized. Perhaps that might make you feel like you have a bigger hand in wiping them out for good.

Perhaps it will wash the blood from your hands. 

Some of it, at least.

-

You wash the grime of the night before from your face, brush the rotten taste from your mouth. You taste toothpaste in the back of your throat as you step back into the bedroom, finding that Steve is still asleep, the quilt almost completely over his face. He’s turned over in the time you’ve been gone, facing the side of the bed you abandoned.

You’re tempted to slip back under the covers, but you’re far too lucid now, too aware of your every movement, uncomfortable with the thought of lying too close to him, or him reaching out for you. You don’t have the excuse of unconscious movement or your body being too heavy to pull yourself away.

So, you change your clothes instead, facing away from him. You comb the snarling tangles from your hair, pulling it back at your nape all over again. The shirt you’re wearing is a soft, waffle-knit material. A dark, muted red. You think you prefer it to the other shirts. It’s less bleak, feels less uniform. It’s a decent enough color, one you can’t say you hate.

-

You leave Steve’s phone where you found it, choosing not to leave the room after a moment of indecision. You lean up against the headboard, sat on top of the covers, and try to write down other locations, but instead, the memories that crept in are scrawled down. Your handwriting is far more legible now, and now that you’ve decided to sort your memories, to divide them between good, bad, and neutral, you’re finding that it’s much easier. The bad comes first, comes in measures, but the horrors of your time under HYDRA are easier to access than anything else. It only makes sense that once they’re written down, they’ll be easier to ignore and then you’ll be able to focus on the rest of it.

It’s going to take time. You may fill the book entirely of those memories, but it has to be done.   
  
After all, it’s barely eight. You have nowhere to go, no one searching for you. You can find a way to get the words out somehow.

-

_ This memory is clearer than the others. _

_ It’s from the earlier years. I know this because my left arm is only a prototype, attached to what was left of my upper arm. It’s difficult to move. Dr. Zola is unhappy. He tells the doctors, the scientists, whoever they were with their clinical touches and thin metal instruments, to work harder. My body was rejecting the change, healing around the vibranium in a way that made everything in my body fail. I remember feeling sick, and then I remembered being strapped to a table with that fucker standing over me once before. _

_ HYDRA didn’t wipe me then. My brain was fried, but only because I cracked my skull open. Even with the serum, I was having trouble remembering things. My brain was healing, but too slowly for Zola’s liking. _ _   
_ _   
_ _ The serum was always being perfected, and somewhere in that stretch of time, he finished it, and gave me another dose. It was stronger than it was the first time. It hurt. I’m not sure if I stood awake. I think I’m getting confused with Kreischberg and Siberia. I don’t know. I didn’t think I remembered Kreischberg until just now. _

_ All I can remember hearing was music. I guess the sound of screaming grates on the nerves, even when you’re a sick bastard. A record played over it all, and it drowned it out for me, too. It was some classical piece I wouldn’t have known no matter the circumstance, but the thought of it makes me feel cold all over. I hope I never hear it again. _

_ I think he wanted me to remember sometimes. I knew my name, or part of it, back then. I can’t run from that anymore. I know who I was and what I was called, I’m just not so sure it’s  _ _ me _ _ anymore. But, I think Zola wanted to rub it in my face. That doesn’t surprise me. I don’t remember much of it, maybe because it’s my brain trying to protect me or maybe it was just lost in one of the wipes eventually, but he showed me an old newspaper headline. It was in German, but I could make out what it said. _

_ I don’t have to think too hard to figure out what that front page story was.  _

_ Or whose face was plastered on it. _

_ I wish I killed him then. I would have if no one stopped me. Almost choked the life out of the prick with one hand until a couple of white coats hauled me up and stuck me with something that must have been a damn horse tranquilizer, because I was back in the Bear Pit and was none the wiser. _

_ At least no one could get to me down there. The only way to get me out was to haul me out or make me climb a rope ladder. Either way was a punishment in and of itself. If I was dragged out, it was painful and humiliating. If I had to climb, dragging myself up each rung with only one working arm and two barely working legs, it was painful and humiliating. _

_ I know the more I write, the more I’ll remember, which is both good and bad. I’ll see it when I shut my eyes and try to sleep, the same way I see the faces of my mother and my sister, Natalia, Yelena, Violetta, Irina, Tanya, and all the others. The same way I see Steve in flashes no matter what I do, even when he’s standing right in front of me. Even when I know he’s alive and breathing. He’s not bloody and broken on the collapsing floor of the helicarrier. He’s not struggling to breathe in our matchbox of an apartment and I don’t have to make sure he survives the night. _

_ We’re both alive. Even if I feel like I’m the ghost of who I was before. I wonder if he feels like that too, if he thinks I’m the same as I was before and  _ _ he’s _ _ the one haunting the house.  _

_ Hell, maybe that’s the case for both of us. _

-

The hour slips by. Your hand begins to cramp, which is strange, because it never cramps.

Then again, it might not be your hand at all. The pain is dull but concentrated, balled up in your scapula, in your neck, in all of the places where skin meets metal.

You roll your neck on your shoulders, stretch it until it cracks in a way that almost feels pleasant, and glance at the clock. It hasn’t been as long as you were hoping for. It’s only nine. Only an hour of digging up memories and forcing them onto paper.

The bed creaks, rising and falling with the sudden movement of Steve’s body, and it snaps you from your thoughts. You glance downward, shutting the notebook.

He’s awake, cheek indented with the creases of the pillowcase. His eyes are squinted open, face pinched and irritated in a way that looks surprisingly familiar. You think you’ve seen him make this expression a hundred, maybe a thousand times.

“Hey,” he says roughly, shifting onto his back. His eyes flick to the notebook. “What are you doing?”

You shake your head.

“Nothing important,” you say. “It’s still early. You should go back to sleep.”   


Steve sits up instead. It was worth a try, you suppose. The circles under his eyes are getting lighter now that he’s managed to stay asleep for more than a couple of hours. “I’m fine,” he says, in a way that sounds like he’s trying to get you off his back about it. “Did my phone ring or did I dream that?”   
  
You watch him for a moment, the slope of his back and the mess of his hair. His body is radiating warmth and you’re tempted to reach out, press your hand to the space between his shoulder blades. Put your palm right over the bumps of his spine.

Did it hurt, you wonder, when the crookedness was smoothed out? Or was he too occupied by the way the rest of his body was stretched and pulled, his bones lengthening and insides squirming? It had to hurt. You almost want to ask him. There’s so much you want to ask him—about the Vita-Ray chamber and being under ice but the last thing you want is to draw attention to those memories.

You don’t want to break the fragile calm that’s fallen over the two of you today.

“Sam called,” you say. “I answered it. He said there’s no rush on calling him back. Everything’s fine.”

Steve licks his lips, and you can all but see the cogs in his head turning. “He sounded okay?” he asks.   
  
“Define okay,” you say before you huff, shake your head. “Yeah, Rogers, he sounded fine. We had a real pleasant conversation.”   
  
Steve snorts quietly. “Good enough,” he says, scrubs his hand over his face. “I could’ve answered it. I don’t need much—”   
  
“You were sleeping like the dead,” you cut in, firm but without malice. “Didn’t wanna wake you up.”

The sound of your own voice takes you by surprise, even though you’ve noticed this happen a few times already, slipping from your unremarkable accent to the one that was trained out of you.

Steve knits his brows together, eyes flickering over you. “Oh,” he says lamely. 

You’re about to respond, but Steve chooses that time to speak as well, beating you to it. “Your arm okay?” he asks.

You make a noncommittal sound, roll your right shoulder and feel an ease in the movement, despite its previous dislocation. That stopped hurting within hours, and it feels like months ago despite you only being out of HYDRA’s grasp for a week.

A  _ week _ , and you’ve remembered more than you could have ever imagined. You would have imagined this process taking months, even though it’s far from over. “Feels fine to me,” you answer.   
  
“I mean your other arm,” Steve clarifies.

You sit further up, motion to your collarbone and your left hip. “Everything from here to here always hurts,” you say, set your hand down. “I don’t pay attention to it.”

However, it is feeling a little more insistent now that you are, in fact, paying attention. It’s a pinching, dull pain, not unlike the grinding you felt in your bones when Steve was tweaking your arm.

“You sure?” Steve asks, obviously not convinced.

“I’ll be fine,” you tell him. “Don’t worry about it. I mean it.”   
  
“If it’s hurting you, there has to be something you can—”   
  
“I’m not taking any goddamn drugs,” you snap, then sigh, shutting your eyes for a long moment. “That’s...that wasn’t for you. At you. I just don’t want to take anything that’s gonna—”   
  
“I know,” Steve says. “I should have figured.”

When you open your eyes, he’s still in the same position, but there’s something pitiful in the bottom of his eyes. You try not to let it make you angry.

“It’s not like you know my whole dirty history, Steve,” you say grimly, an attempt at reassurance. “You can’t beat yourself up every time you say something that hits home. It’s better to just get past whatever it is instead of tip-toeing around me. I’ve seen a lot of shit. Gonna be hard not to say something that brings a memory back, good or bad. That goes for both of us.”   
  
For a long moment, Steve says nothing, but then he seems to get past some sort of apprehension and asks, “Does anything set you off?”

It’s so frank, so stripped clean of any sugar-coating, that it’s easy to answer.

“We’re not near anything that sets me off,” you say. “Aside from showers, maybe. The cold, too, but I can avoid those if it comes down to it. Long as I can get clean some other way and have clothes on my back, I’ll live. But save for that, it’s...it’s the obvious. Being restrained, held down. Hospitals. Goddamn white coats and scalpels. That’s all I can think of, but I’m sure there’s plenty I don’t know about.”

It’s said with a dark note of humor you didn’t expect from yourself. It’s not funny, not traditionally funny. It’s almost sad, even for you.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Steve says. “You never liked hospitals.”

It doesn’t make you feel any better, but at least you know it’s a consistent trait of yours.

You breathe out sharply through your nose, and it’s not exactly a laugh. “Anything else?” you ask. “Or is that the only thing that stands out?”   
  
Steve still looks muddled with sleep, and it hangs heavily on him when he gives you a small, barely there smile that makes your chest twinge. “No, there’s..there’s more,” he says. “Maybe you don’t see it, but it’s there. You’re there.”   
  
You aren’t sure what to think of it all, but the thought that some part of who you were before is stubbornly hanging on is...reassuring. It makes you feel a little less wicked, a little less weighed down by the decades spent under HYDRA’s thumb.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> getting explicit in this one, kids.

Steve disappears into the bathroom not long after that, and you can hear the sink running as you make your way downstairs, hear the door to the other bedroom closing as you fill a pot with water, set it on the stove to boil.

You prefer making coffee on your own, prefer the stovetop to the machine. There’s something meditative to it. It’s a task that doesn’t require much thought, just your attention.

It boils quickly, bubbling hard and fast. The coffee grounds dissolve quickly, turn the water to a deep, rich brown, and the smell hits you immediately, the air growing steamy with it. Your stomach twinges in a way that almost feels pleasant. Distantly, Steve’s socked footsteps are pacing upstairs.

There’s an intimacy to this. One you don’t want to break away from.

You think you’ll write this down, too. You’ll find a book specifically for the present, and find a way to save these moments somewhere in case you forget them.

-

The first sip you take from your coffee burns,  but it doesn’t bother you. 

It feels good to make a mistake, it means you’re losing some of your vigilance. Of course, you’re still wary, still prepared for anything, but the scorching sensation in your chest and on the back of your tongue feels...unlike you.

_ Human error _ , your mind supplies. Like grief, like love, like fury. Soon, there may be smaller errors, just like now. That is easier to swallow than anything else.

-

The rain is heavy, but luckily, but the patio is covered.   
  
When you step outside, all you can feel is dampness in the air, and a dry, bitter chill that’s far too cold for this time of year. It makes your left side smart again, tension spidering up your shoulder and through your neck.

You try not to pay it any mind, leaning against the siding of the house. Your insides are warm, right hand still warm from holding a long since abandoned mug.

The rain is bearable, even if it looks like another storm is brewing. It’s better than snow. Better than frozen ground and dead, naked trees, frost and icicles. You never want to see another snowstorm again, never want to feel the sharp wind whip at your face, stinging your eyes, just as it did on a long zipline through the Alps, body tense with it, wondering if you would—

A creak snaps you from the memory, and that's when  Steve steps out, dressed in the same clothes he wore yesterday. You weren’t wrong about him needing the sleep. His eyes aren’t so shadowed and gaunt anymore. “Enjoying the weather?” he asks wryly.

You resist the urge to roll your eyes. “Something like that,” you mutter. The wind is picking up now. It smells of wet leaves and the biting cold.

Neither of you speak for a while, but you sneak a glance at Steve, taking in his stiff posture. He looks ready to jump out of his skin.

“You hate it out here,” you say. “I can see it in your face.”   
  
Steve turns to look at you, and you watch him from the corner of your eye. “I don’t hate it out here,” he says. “It’s just not what I’m used to.”   
  
“You hate it because it reminds you of the cabin,” you clarify. “The one you told me about.”   


Steve doesn’t respond. 

He doesn’t respond for a long while.   
  
“Rain comes down the same way,” he says eventually. “That’s all.”

So, there are things that set him off, too. Drowning, possibly. The cold, definitely. You wonder how piloting a jet must feel to him now. How being monitored constantly felt, scrutinized and assessed. You wonder how much they asked of him. Maybe he left New York for that reason, preferring being out in the field to being a lab rat.

“What about you?” Steve asks.

Your brows knit together and you turn to meet his eyes. “What about me?”

“Do you like it out here?”

It’s a question that blindsides you. One you haven’t thought about.

  
You shake your head. “I don’t know,” you say. “It wasn’t part of the plan.”

Steve’s eyes look steely grey in the dark gloom, drained of color. “I know you wanted to get out of here,” he says. “I can’t say I blame you, but you...” he exhales slowly. “That agent got you bad in the garage. I couldn’t just leave you behind.”

“I get it, Rogers,” you say. “I’d rather be here, anyway.”

That makes him smile—a small, warm thing you’re beginning to think has only ever been directed at you.

At least you’re safe here. At least you’re able to lie low until what remains of HYDRA thinks you’re dead for good now. All they know is that Steve escaped. They don’t know who made it happen. They won’t have time to check the vault, and by the time they do, it won’t matter. They’ll think SHIELD got to it. They’ll think the bases being taken down are bits of information gained over time, and by the time they start to suspect too much, most of the North American branch should be finished.

The thought settles a growling, angry thing in your chest, if only for a moment.

“It’s not so bad,” Steve says, half to himself. “You know, if the rain lets up tomorrow, we can walk around the woods for a while. See what we’re dealing with.”

You nod once, then try to roll your neck on your shoulders, only to find your muscles stiffer than before, protesting every movement and sending pain shooting down your left side, cramping in the deepest part of your shoulder, your back. You try to rub at your nape, pressing your fingers into your skin, but it does you no good.

The pain must show on your face, because Steve pins you in place with his gaze.

“It’s fine,” you say before he can ask. “Just stiff.”

“Could be the rain making it worse,” Steve says, watching your hand as it falls back to your side. “The cold, too. I know plenty about that.”

That sounds familiar, his endless aches during the winters. Early bouts of arthritis, you recall. He had old bones stuffed into a young body and they made him hurt long before his time. You wonder if it was getting any worse by the time he got the serum. You wonder how he felt to be unburdened of pain, of illness for once in his life.

“It’s fine,” you repeat, waving him off. “I’ll be fine.”   
  
“I can help you,” Steve offers. “If you want me to.”

Meaning he wants to work the knots out of your joints, put his hands all over you.

The thought of it makes your skin prickle all over. It’s different than him fixing your arm, accidental touches or a hand on the shoulder, or even the way his arms wrapped around you on the bedroom floor, tight and steadying through your misery.

This feels too intimate. It requires too much trust, and you’re not sure you’ll be able to bear it.

But, God, do you  _ hurt. _

It’s akin to the weariness you felt when you trudged out of the Potomac, body protesting with every movement, but it’s all concentrated on one side of you. You grind your teeth together, shutting your eyes for only a moment. The pain is beginning to trigger a headache, the stiffness of your neck radiating into your skull—a buzzing, insistent thing.

“Just tell me where you want me,” you mutter.

Now, Steve looks somewhat reluctant, which is odd considering he’s the one who brought it up, but you try to pay it no mind, just waiting for him to answer.   
  
“Come and pick a spot,” he says, and opens the front door, disappearing inside before you follow him.

-

It’s much warmer than it was earlier, meaning Steve turned the heat on at some point. You’re relieved for it, feeling some of the cold being forced from your body, rushing over your chilled skin.

“You sure you’re okay with this?” Steve asks, tense all over.

A part of you wants to say something sharp, but you swallow it down, not because you fear his reaction, but you just…

You don’t have the energy for it.   
  
“I’ll tell you if I change my mind,” you say, nod toward the couch. “Here’s fine.”   
  
You would have suggested the bedroom, just for ease of movement, but you don’t entertain that idea for too long. Sinking into the bed with his hands all over you is not going to end well, judging by the stirring heat behind your navel, hot just with the half-formed thought of it.

Steve nods. “That works for me,” he says, and he’s already moving toward it, slow and sure before sitting on the far end of it. 

You try to steady your breathing, quell the frantic stir in the pit of your stomach. There’s nothing behind his actions. It’s no different to letting him tweak your arm, but it is. That was something akin to maintenance, and maybe this is, too, but you feel like layers of skin, of tender muscle, are being peeled back from your bones.

Despite it, you move closer.

You sit as close as you dare, too aware of the rigidity to your body, making the knotted, hot pain in your shoulder far more difficult to ignore. Too aware of Steve sitting behind you.

“It’s here,” you say before he can ask, pressing your hand at the junction between your neck and shoulder, rubbing your nape before you set your hand down. “And down my back.”

No response, nothing but breathing. Faintly, you can see your reflection through the window, half-illuminated by lamplight. Steve looks nervous, but you watch him raise one hand, tentative.

When his hand clasps your shoulder, thumb digging into the knots, the stiffness, it almost hurts, leaving you biting back a pained noise, but then you realize it’s not his touch that’s hurting you. His hand is warm through your shirt; gentle, even, and your head dips forward, left hand clenching and whirring softly as the plates shift erratically in your wrist.

“Buck?” Steve asks, and the name catches you off-guard. It’s what you wanted to hear last night, but now you’re not so sure.

“I’m okay,” you manage to say, setting your jaw.

Steve doesn’t pull away, hand resting at your shoulder—as comfort, maybe. Reassurance. A way to prove he means no harm. His hand is warm, even through the thin material, gentle despite the strength you know he has. It was a fair fight, between the two of you. He could have done just as much damage as you, if not more, but he didn’t.

He didn’t.

“You can keep going,” you mutter. “It’s gonna get worse before it gets better.”

“Yeah,” Steve says quietly. “Seems a lot of things are like that.”   
  
Before you can say anything, he begins again, pressing his hand down into the meat of your shoulder. Or at least, what’s left of it. You ignore your discomfort, ignore the pressure, steadily growing firmer as Steve’s fingers dig into a knot you didn’t realize was there. For a moment, it feels like you’re spasming, like your muscles are locking up, seizing painfully. 

Your right hand is clenching hard into the sofa’s upholstery, nails rasping against it as the pain deepens, burning through you, and then something  _ gives _ and you can breathe again.

You can breathe easier than before.

A breath puffs out of you, one you didn’t realize you were holding, and Steve’s hand is still running up and down your shoulder, but once again, it’s as a comfort more than anything else. You swallow, exhaling through your nose.

“Wow,” Steve says, half to himself. “I actually felt that one loosen.”   
  
“Well,” you say, tilting your head from side to side. Your neck is still as stiff as before. “I think you got your work lined up for you if you really decide to throw in the towel.”

You glance up toward the window, where you can just barely see the growing tension in his body.

“I told you,” you add before he can speak. “I heard everything.”

He watches your reflection, frozen, but then you turn your body to look at him, as much as you can bear.

“It’s not even about me wanting to,” Steve says, quiet, like it’s a secret. “I think I have to.”

Once again, your fingers itch to reach out, to touch him. You want to slide your hand up his cheek and let your thumb linger over the swell of his lower lip or the corner of his mouth. Would you kiss him, then? You’re not sure, but if he leaned in first, if he wanted it as much as you do, you wouldn’t pull away.   
  
You wouldn’t deprive yourself this time.

Steve’s throat bobs when he swallows, and your eyes follow the path of it before you force them away. “It’s…” he says. “I can’t really get at everything through your shirt.”   
  
It takes a lot for him to say, so driven to make sure you’re not uncomfortable that  _ he _ ends up being in that position, but the truth is, you don’t want to take off your shirt. 

The first time was different, because it was your arm he was focused on, not the rest of your body. Not the endless surgical scars and the veiny, pearly pink ones that came from your body rejecting your prosthetic time and time again.

He’ll still feel them, but at least he won’t see them too well. A small mercy.

“You can go underneath it,” you tell him, and turn back to your original position.

Steve does. One hand slides under and up your shirt, the other set at your right shoulder, and you realize this is a very, very bad idea, but it’s too late to pull away. You need this. Need it far more than you’d like to admit.

Embarrassingly, you shiver at the feeling of his hand sliding up your back, over a bullet wound that never healed right. His hand moves gingerly first, skin almost hot against your own, but you force yourself to relax under his touch. You wonder if he can feel your heart beating through your back.

The pressure begins again, slower this time, and he’s massaging the spot beside the knob of your spine, steadily intensifying the pressure, leaving you puffing out a breath\ of relief when that knot gives easier than the first.

You say nothing when he moves closer to the spot where metal meets skin, and that’s a different sort of hurt. A festering thing that almost makes you feel sick, but you want to be able to move. You want to be rid of this, so you don’t stop him, choosing to shut your eyes. You focus on the sound of the rain instead, on the way Steve kneads at your sore, aching muscles, and realize you’ve been here before.

A heavy silence is running between the two of you, and it’s not exactly uncomfortable, but you feel the need to break it. To say—

“You did this for me once,” you say, low in your throat. “During the war.”

Steve’s hand stills, just for a moment. “In Lithuania,” he says softly. “Yeah, of course I remember.”

_ Kaunas _ , you think. It was on the brink of being occupied by the Red Army, then, but that didn’t mean the city and the outskirts weren’t riddled with Nazis. The thought of this suddenly makes you feel very old.

It’s easy to picture that night, however. With your eyes shut, you can picture the squat, abandoned house. You can almost feel the drafty floor beneath you and the heat of a hearth, the smell of burning firewood in your nose, your hair cold and damp against your neck, water dripping steadily down, stubbornly refusing to dry. Your body ached from trudging through the mud, and it was so difficult to think about anything but finding somewhere to sleep, somewhere far away from the action.

It didn’t stop the constant sound of bullets echoing through your mind, though. You still woke up with a litany of horrors caught behind your teeth, content as you were.

Some things never change, you suppose.

Another knot, loosening and feeling even more tender than before as Steve works at it. His other hand comes up under your shirt and you feel it ride up, stomach twisting when he moves to the stubborn spot in your lower back. You stiffen, squeeze your eyes shut tighter.

“There’s metal in there,” you say through clenched teeth. “A bunch of—” you breathe out. “Goddamn pins and screws.”

Steve doesn’t ask why they’re there, and you wouldn’t answer him if he did. You don’t want to see the look on his face if he learns your spine snapped clean in half, that your legs were so broken that a shard of bone was jutting out from the right shin, and the left was twisted at such an angle, you aren’t sure how you managed to walk after that.

They should have let you die. They would have, you think, if they didn’t notice how quickly your body healed.

Steve only asks, “Are they anywhere else?”   
  
You shake your head, humiliation tasting acidic in the back of your throat. “I can’t remember,” you force out. “Just keep going. I’m not gonna break.”

That’s all he needs to hear, evidently, because his hands are slowly moving further up, back toward your left side, up your back where you feel the most stiffness, the most pain, kneading hard all the while. It’s just this side of painful, but not enough to make you want him to stop. Your body feels warm all over, his heat bleeding into your skin and melting the aches away. Forcing them out.

You’re not sure how much time passes before he eases his hands away, but all the places he touched feel cold now, craving the pressure all over again, but even that quiets down when you feel him move toward your neck.

Opening your eyes is more difficult than you thought it would be. You feel sluggish, on the brink of sleep, suddenly. 

You nod, just once to urge him on, and then he gets at the spots hurting you most, pressing his thumbs into the tender, too-tight muscles at either side of your neck, digging hard into the spots where they meet your shoulders. It feels like pressure is being relieved from your brain stem, from your spinal cord.

Again, something gives, seems to pop right up against your nape, and then you can breathe.

“Fuck,” you puff out involuntarily. Steve’s hand remains at your neck, thumb tracing in mindless little circles that make your chest swell and clench in a way that’s bordering painful.

You feel boneless, loose all over. You didn’t realize how much you hurt all over until it all finally stopped. Even if it’s just for now, you’re thankful for it. Thankful to have a few minutes of peace.

Steve’s hand falls away, slipping down your back. You roll your neck on your shoulders with more ease than before, breathing easier than yo did throughout the morning.

You back up to the other side of the couch, sit back against it, feeling your body sink with it. It’s nice, in a way, but it’s unnerving. You’ve never felt so lax naturally without anything forcing you into such a state.

“Thank you,” you say, and it sounds muzzy and quiet even to your own ears, barely audible over the rain picking up again. “That…that helped.”   
  
You open your eyes to find Steve staring at you, like he’s absorbed all of the tension from your body. He forces something like a smile on his mouth, shakes his head. “I know how it feels,” he says. “Didn’t matter if it was just a cold snap or if it was just a normal winter, I always ended up hurting all over, but I was too proud to let anyone know how bad it was.”

The thought makes your stomach twitch unpleasantly, him being twisted up in pain and gritting his teeth against it rather than finding a solution. It must have done him more harm than good, seeped him of the strength he had, but then again, most things did. You wonder if that’s the case now, too.   
  
You breathe out, slow and deep. This is different. You never slump or slouch. Or maybe you used to. You can’t be sure, and it’s such an inane question to ask that you don’t bother at all.

“You say ‘was’ like it’s a thing of the past,” you say, the words rolling easily off your tongue, all the words going soft in your mouth, spilling out the same way they did in the bedroom. “You’re not fooling anyone, Steve.”   
  
Or at least, he’s not fooling  _ you _ .

That has his face darkening with something distant and sad. You’re sick of that look on him, sick of making him miserable, sick to death of keeping him at arm’s length.

You want to say something, but you aren’t sure what it is exactly. You could ask him a question or tell him whatever is trying to make its way to the front of your mind, sharpening with every moment.

Steve seems to be on the same page. It’s only a moment before he opens his mouth to speak, but that’s when his phone rings, loud and shrill. 

His voice is lost in his throat when he says, “I don’t have to answer it.”

Your eyes flicker to the faint light in his pocket, then back up to his face. “Could be Wilson making sure I didn’t kill you,” you say.

A humorless laugh puffs out of him. “I already talked to him,” he says, hesitates before he adds, “This can wait.”   
  
He’s lying, but you aren’t sure if it’s to you or himself. You shake your head and say, “No, it can’t.”

Steve’s jaw works before he nods, and it seems to take great effort for him to look away, to tug the phone from his pocket before he stands up, answers it as he disappears down the hall. 

“I already said I have nothing else,” he says irritably. He sounds tired. “I’m still working on…”   
  
His voice fades as he heads upstairs, but you think you know what he’s talking about. As far as anyone knows, Steve is the main source of information on HYDRA bases, not you. Whoever acquires the intel won’t question him, because for whatever reason, they see him as the only honest person they know.

It’s funny, though. The only reason Steve Rogers is honest is because he can’t lie to save his life. He can omit the truth, sure, but never outright lie.

The fact that he’s doing just that for you, though, must mean something.

-

You don’t sleep, but you do shut your eyes and try to find some sort of ease now that you have the time. Steve is still pacing around upstairs, but you can’t be bothered straining your ears to listen. The sound of the rain is soothing now that the weather isn’t taking a toll on your body.

It’s hard to forget the feeling of how Steve worked at your back and shoulders, rubbed the knots out. The phantom sensation of his touch is impossible to ignore. The way his hand slid up under your shirt in a way that made your body stir, come awake through the discomfort.   
  
Now, it’s even more prominent, raw and bright in the core of you. You rub your right hand over your eyes firmly before you open them, and when you sit up straighter, you notice an entirely new ache.

You’re pressing hard against your sweatpants, black material tenting tightly and rubbing against you with even the slightest movement, even with your breathing. This had to have been happening for a while now. If it was more sudden you would have had a headrush, felt dizzy with it.

The pipes creak and groan just as you think that, and the shower turns on.

As if that doesn’t worsen your situation.

Between the memory of Steve’s hands on you, the thought of him now, the way he watched you with bated breath last night when you hovered over his body, and the memory of his mouth against yours, you don’t think you’re going to make it this time. You feel intoxicated with it all—a dark, growling thing steadily growing from the pit of your stomach and vibrating through the rest of your body, a sensation you can feel from the tips of your fingers to the balls of your feet.

When you stand, it hurts. You’re clenched up from the inside out, and your dick rubs insistently through your boxers, through your pants. Your face feels hot and prickly.

You feel foolish when you move slowly up the stairs, like you’re breaking the fragile foundation growing between you and Steve, even if you’re not doing anything. Not really.   
  
All you’re doing is listening. Nothing more and nothing less.

You turn the corner into the room you’ve taken over. It’s yours, but it isn’t, and that’s not what’s important right now, anyway. You rest your back against the wall, right by the doorway, just out of sight, and you feel a prickle of  _ wrong _ . 

Maybe this is too invasive. Maybe it’s too much.

You breathe out, steeling yourself and shutting your eyes. You try not to think about it. Try not to think about Steve. You listen to the rain and the sound of your own breathing and will your body to get a grip on itself, to stop ruling over you for just one  _ second _ .

Coming up here was a terrible idea, but now, you can’t seem to move. You’re rooted to the spot, like you’re being punished for wanting him. You’re so tired of being punished, of punishing yourself.

All you can do now is breathe, and breathe, and breathe, while your body refuses to cooperate with you.

Your eyes open as the shower turns off, another breath shivering its way out of you. You push your hair out of your eyes, falling from its tie stubbornly. You don’t bother securing it or pulling it back into a bun all over again. Your hand is too shaky for it.

There’s no sound coming from the bathroom. Nothing worth noting. Your fists clench at your sides as you peek your head out into the hall, quickly receding when you see the outline of Steve’s foot through the crack in the door.

You feel as naked, as exposed as Steve must be now, heart pounding wildly.

Before you realize what you’re doing, you’re stepping up to the bathroom door and knocking.   
  
“Be out in a minute,” Steve says, muffled through the flimsy wood.   
  
You swallow down all the foolish things you can say and knock again, more insistent than before.

Nothing for a long moment, but then the rickety old knob is twisting, the door is creaking open, and Steve appears in the gap, wet hair plastered to his forehead, skin shiny with water.

“You okay?” he asks, looking flushed. Surely from the water cranked to near scalding heat, from the steamy, close air coming from the bathroom.

Your throat feels dry, body seized up all over again.

Confusion flickers over his features. “What—”   
  
“Tell me to stop and I’ll stop,” you say breathlessly. “I mean that.”

You take a step closer, and Steve takes a step back. 

It almost discourages you. It almost makes you walk away, but the door is more open than before.

You step inside, shutting the door behind you, and suddenly have no idea what to do.   
  
It’s hot in the bathroom and it makes sweat bead on your temples, makes your hair feel thick and frizzy. You must have stepped in a puddle, because your sock is wet.

Steve isn’t naked. He has a towel around his waist and he’s watching you with a measured sort of curiosity. He’s tense in the same way you are, body poised to expect a blow, but no, that’s not it at all. You’re both alight with nerves, on the verge of shaking apart with it.

It’s nice not being the only one for once.

There’s a droplet of water on Steve’s upper lip and his tongue darts out for it when it falls. 

For whatever reason, his eyes drift downward, and you feel like you’ve been caught.

This isn’t just blind want boiling inside of you. It isn’t about that. You know it’s there, but it’s not the thing pushing you forward. You want answers, want to find them in the softness of his mouth and all the things he’s leaving unsaid, in the memories buried deep inside of you, trying to spew out.

The same blush Steve had before has returned, high and darker than before, reaching the tips of his ears. Your heart pounds hard, vibrating in your skull as you sweep your gaze over him, as you step closer, come up into his space. You don’t back him into the wall, but he positions himself there, and it’s impossible for you not to step closer, close enough that you feel heat radiating off his body.

“You said you see me,” you say, low in your throat. “Tell me what you see.”   


“Everything,” Steve says immediately. “I see it all and I…” He trails off, but the implication is there. It’s as obvious as your own arousal, nearly brushing his thigh through the towel, hanging low on his hips. “I can’t keep looking away.”

His breath is as rushed as yours. He smells like soap and deodorant, like heat, and when you bring your right hand up to his cheek, he feels almost feverish, jaw set tight against your palm.

You swallow down a breath, shaky and unsure if it’s want or fear causing it. “So, what are you gonna do about it?” you ask.

Guilt passes over his face, and you wonder why. Is it because he thinks he’s taking advantage of you? Because he isn’t sure of what he wants?   
  
Is there a wrong answer to any of this? Is there a ‘but’ or apprehension, something that makes this forbidden?  _ Not anymore _ , you think.  _ Not anymore. _   


“Steve,” you say, firmer than before. “What are you gonna do about it?”

Guilt, apprehension, whatever is holding him back, is shoved to the side when he curls his fingers around your wrist, keeping your hand in place as he leans forward.

You meet him halfway, and the moment you do, his hand slides up to your shoulders, warm and steadying, his forearm soaking into your shirt. Steve seems to have his own personal sun trapped inside his body, and you want to press in as close as you can, steal some of that heat until the last of the frost has melted from your skin.

Despite your urgency, the kiss is a soft, closed-mouth thing. One you both give into easily, but still, you’re more surprised by Steve than yourself. Maybe he doesn’t feel the need to be stubborn. Not here, not with you.

Gentleness is not something you associate with yourself. Being so careful with someone, almost reverent in your movements, is new. Steve is leaning into your touches so easily, letting your hand roam down his cheek and slide beneath his jaw. 

You press gently at the corner of it with your thumb, let your fingers trace at the warm skin at the side of his neck. It pulls a barely there sound from his mouth, vibrating straight through you, slipping deep in your bloodstream. It’s getting harder and harder to imagine pulling away.

He wants to let his guard down, and God, you want to do the same.

You’re already becoming increasingly familiar with his mouth, and this time, you’re not fighting against each other through it all. You’re not holding back. Neither of you have anything to prove to each other now, not when you’ve been laid bare so many times now, in so many ways.

All you feel now is relief. You’re kissing him because you can, because you can have him, because he needs this as much as you.

It’s hard to tell who inches closer, who pulls who, but you feel Steve’s hand slide to the back of your neck in a slow, fluid motion, and it gives you the push you need to deepen the kiss, to be more insistent. The breath that shivers out of you is hot, and you’re aching, the length of you pressing up against Steve’s hip. He must feel it, must be just as pent up as you are because it makes him press closer, almost chest to chest with you.

You breathe out, breaking the kiss to steady yourself. You’re wet everywhere he’s touching, like some sort of twisted version of the last time you bursted in on him, but this time, you don’t want to rip yourself away. That’s the last thing you want.

This close, all you can see are the minute details of his face—the water droplets on his lashes, the bumpy line of his nose. You pull back, just a little, feeling his breath rush over your mouth, mingling with your own. Your lungs are burning like you’ve run for miles.

Steve’s hand is wet and firm on the back of your neck, dampening your hair. “Hey, you with me?” he asks hoarsely, like he’s the one who started all of this.

You shake your head, as if to say  _ don’t worry about me, _ before tracing your thumb over the swell of his lower lip, feeling the slickness of it and his breath shivering out of his mouth.

“I remember this,” you say, and hope he understands. You swallow thickly as you trace back over his cheek, over the side of his neck, worn thin with need. “I remember touching you.”

You do. You remember the electricity sparking in your blood when you kissed him a lifetime ago, so many times you can’t bring yourself to pick out one moment in particular. All you can recall is the taste of his mouth, the sharp, insistent pressure of his body, first thin and wiry, then big and broad, miles and miles of skin under your hands. You almost shudder with the intensity of it, feeling flayed to the bone.

You remember touching him, wanting him, and being wanted in return.

There’s a change in Steve;s demeanor, a final shred of hesitation slipping away. “So touch me,” he says, so soft but sending another, more insistent wave of heat rushing into your blood, turning it molten. “Touch me, Buck, because—God, I need this, too. I need you, too.”

A weak, needy sound escapes from your throat, one that you barely repress, and there’s nothing you can say, nothing that will suffice, so you kiss him instead, allow yourself to be more insistent this time, hungrier than before, and feel yourself moan rather than hear it when Steve responds with the same fervor.

You feel dizzy with it all. The hot air, the beat of your own heart, the solidness of Steve’s body pressed up against your own. Has he wanted this since you kissed, or has he been staving it off? Has he been waiting for you to take initiative and make the decision for him?   
  
It doesn’t matter. None of it matters.

Your hips grind forward of their own accord and you realize you’re pressed right up against Steve, his dick rubbing against yours through thin layers of material. You breathe out, wet and hot, when he makes a bitten back noise, caught in his throat.

“Fuck,” you whisper before you realize what you’re saying, resisting the urge to squeeze your eyes shut. You want to see him as much as you want to feel him.   
  
Steve leans in again, fingers sliding up into your hair until the tie loosens and falls to the floor. This time, the kiss is shorter, sloppier. You kiss the corner of his mouth, letting your body take over for a moment and tasting the faint tang of soap on his skin. His new stubble rasps against your lips in a way that makes you hot all over again.   
  
“You need to shave,” you mumble into his skin, run your mouth down his chin, your right hand coming to his shoulder as the left remains lax at your side.

Steve huffs, and he might be laughing. You feel the sound vibrating against your mouth.

“Says you,” he mutters, pulse jumping when you press an open-mouthed kiss against it. You didn’t realize you’d know exactly what you wanted from him, that you’d want to memorize all the things you forgot with your lips and your tongue and your fingers.

When you lift your head again, searching for his mouth again, you feel Steve’s free hand moving downward, sliding between your legs and cupping, rubbing you through your sweatpants. Your hips jerk forward hard, grinding against the heel of his hand, insides squeezing and tightening in a way that makes you wonder if you’re hurtling toward the edge already. 

You breathe out hard against his mouth, nose pressing into his cheek for a moment before you kiss him again. 

Through it all, you keep your left hand at your side, even as you melt into Steve’s touches, the hand at your neck grounding you. You part your lips against his, try to get him to do the same and he gets the message quickly, exhaling into your mouth as you tilt your head, try to focus on the solidness of him, the way he’s pressed up against you, sharp hips digging into your own.

You didn’t expect this. You didn’t expect any of this, but you’re not going to pull away now, not when Steve is letting you lick into his mouth, responding with the same fervor, pressing hard and heavy against your thigh.

He suddenly pulls his hand away from you, and you’re about to be disappointed, but then there’s the soft thump of his towel, and you don’t mind the absence so much after that. You can press closer now, feel all of him pressed up against you, and he makes an pained noise, breaking the kiss.

“God, Bucky,” he whispers. It’s enough to make your head swim, knees nearly giving out. The air is hot and wet, close against your skin. Your hair is frizzing, curling at the ends.

“C’mere,” you say, pressing your knee between his legs to spread them. When he kisses you, it’s hungrier, sloppier, but you can’t bring yourself to care. The want you feel burns through you, boils your blood, and it feels better than you imagined, being at the behest of your own body, on your own terms for once. “Too damn small in here.”

You slide your hands down his sides, over the swell of his ass before you reach his thighs and tug, feel his knees bend, like he knows exactly what you’re trying to do, your bodies moving together like a fine-oiled machine, two parts finally fitting together after struggling to work without the other.

Steve is by no means light, but you have no trouble lifting him, feeling his legs wrap around your waist as the kiss breaks. His hands are at either side of your neck, but one disappears when you back up, wrenching the door open.

You aren’t sure where all of this is coming from, and that goes for both of you. Steve’s body wrapped around your torso feels unspeakably good, and the rush of dry air that comes with your careful step into the hallway feels even better, rapidly cooling the sweat on your blazing skin.

The distance between the bathroom and your bedroom is barely there thanks to the narrow hallway, and it’s in the doorway that you’re dragged into another kiss, one that has a moan spilling out of your mouth. You’re pressed up against the cleft of Steve’s ass and you’re thankful you can reach the bed then, because your knees almost give out with it.

It’s messy, crashing down on top of him while his legs bracket your waist, a mess of slick skin and hot breath, and you’re dizzy with it, head spinning. You’re barely aware of it when Steve rolls you over, switching your positions.

Now, it’s frantic. Now, it’s needy. You feel pleasantly raw, burning from the inside out as you let your right hand slide up his back, feeling ridiculous at the amount of clothes you have on but finding yourself unable to pull away.   
  
All the while, your left hand remains at your side, fisting into the quilt.   
  
Of course, Steve notices it.

The kiss breaks abruptly, with a soft, wet sound. You try to chase after him, but he reaches for your hand, does nothing but curl his fingers around your wrist.

All you can do is watch, watch the veins and bones of his hand resting beside the artificial parts of your own, before he breaks the silence.

“I told you,” Steve says, voice heavy and quiet. “Want you to touch me.”   
  
“I don’t want it on you,” you say, swallowing thickly, eyes flickering over his face. “You already know what I—”

“I’m not just gonna ask for some of you,” Steve cuts in. “I want all of you. I’m always gonna want all of you, no matter what.”

Maybe it’s the onslaught of emotions, your body in overdrive, overwhelmed by everything, but his words make you feel drawn tight, despair tainting your pleasure.

You shake your head. “You shouldn’t,” you tell him. “Steve, you shouldn’t.”   
  
“But I do,” Steve says, clearer than before. “I told you before, and I know you don’t remember, but I’ll tell you again. I’ll keep telling you as long as you need me to. No one’s ever gonna be you, Buck. It’s not gonna happen. Take it or leave it, that’s how it is. That’s how it’s always been.”

Even though Steve speaks without hesitation, his flush has darkened, crawling up his throat, spreading to the tip of his ears. His jaw tightens in the same way it does when he has to physically stop himself from saying anything else, good or bad. You...God, you saw it on his face on a whiskey-tinged New Years’ Eve almost a lifetime ago. Saw it when he stormed into your hotel room in London with hurt and anger flashing in his eyes. 

You saw it in his half-broken face while the helicarrier burned and crumbled around you.

It’s too binding. Even now, even with the wild want raging between the two of you, his eyes are too earnest. Too  _ kind.  _

You breathe out like it hurts, like he’s screwing at the insides of your arm all over again, the harsh vibration radiating through your bones. Or like he’s kneading the knots out of your body, refusing to let up, but there’s a warmth to it, one that wasn’t there before. 

You know what he’s offering you. You can feel it in your marrow, taste it in the back of your throat. 

“You and your speeches,” you croak, and faintly, faintly feel him squeeze your fingers.

You can’t hold back this time. You can’t allow yourself to run from the truth now, not when it’s staring you in the face.

You slip away from his grip, moving upward until you’re framing his face in your mismatched hands.

“I don’t know what to do now,” you admit, mood turned partially upside down.

Steve leans into your touch, favoring your left hand. “Me neither,” he says. “God, me neither.”   
  
He’s leaning down as he says it, and now that your pulse isn’t so frantic, now that you’ve taken a moment to breathe, you can think more clearly. You can focus on the softness of his mouth, the warmth of his hands sliding down to your hips. Your own slip to his shoulders. He gives you the slightest tug, and then you’re easing to lie on your sides, able to press up all over.

“Just—” you tug away, pulling your shirt over your head and tossing it to the floor before coming back to the circle of his arms, pushing past what remains of your reservations and letting him touch, letting him feel, letting him see.

You’re hovering over him, just slightly, and you hold your breath as he slows, as his hand slides up over the spot where your skin meets metal, fingers lingering over the veiny scars you barely feel. His eyes linger over them, over the plating on your bicep, something vaguely angry in the bottom of them.

“It’s part of me,” you say instead of whatever foolish thing trying to slip out of your mouth. “Same way the serum’s part of us.”

This prosthetic was the third and final prototype they fit you with, the one that refused to budge and helped you squeeze the life out of a doctor, out of the dozens of techs that tried to sedate you. In its first few moments of mobility, you didn’t use it to harm someone innocent. You used it to try clawing your way to freedom.

That has to mean something. It doesn’t erase the fact that HYDRA saw it as a weapon, a tool, but that just means it was manipulated the same way the rest of your body had been for decades.

It’s part of you after all.

“Just trying to accept it,” you finish, and you give in easily, meeting Steve halfway when he kisses you.

Being pressed skin to skin feels right, tasting sweat and skin and chasing away your tension for only a few moments feels right, and you’re relieved. You’re so relieved that you don’t have to run from your desire anymore. You can let your body take the wheel for now and reacquaint itself with being wanted, with feeling good for once.

You find a way to wiggle out of your sweatpants and boxers, toeing off your socks in the process before kicking it all off the bed. Being pressed up naked against Steve doesn’t bother you. Yes, you feel set alight with nerves. Yes, you feel stretched thin and exposed, but you don’t want any of it to stop.

In the past seven decades, you haven’t felt anything close to pleasure, and you refuse to deprive yourself now.

You slot your bodies closer together, up against Steve from the chest down, and you can feel his dick pressing against yours, dragging against it in a way that feels utterly filthy, leaving you biting back a curse, muffling it against his mouth.

You give an experimental grind of your hips, and the sound Steve makes goes straight through you. He grasps hard at the muscle of your back, fingers digging into your skin. You aren’t sure if he’s saying  _ fuck _ or  _ Buck _ but it goes through you either way, buries itself deep in the core of you as he matches your movements.

“When was the last time you got any?” you breathe out, let him pull you further on top of him. The angle is even better now, and you shiver when his hand slides down over the swell of your ass and  _ squeezes _ .

You pull back just enough to see him clearly, to see the hesitation in his face before it clears and he clenches his jaw, just for a moment. 

“Hasn’t been too long,” he huffs, lifting his hips when you grind yours forward. “I told— _ ah _ —told you about me and Sam, that we were giving it a try, but it didn’t work out. We didn’t—I didn’t even know you were alive.”

You shake your head. “You’re not my property, Rogers,” you mutter, and when you lean down to kiss him, he’s hungrier for it than before. “I just wasn’t sure if it’s been as long as it’s been for me.”   
  
His brows knit together, but he doesn’t respond. You take advantage of that to continue, to say, “You’re the last person I remember making time with.”

Frankly, you’re relieved for it. Not in the way of preserving yourself, but a memory being tainted with your conditioning, with a lack of control, is something you’re glad to have a lack of for once.

Steve’s other hand comes to your cheek, smoothing your unruly hair away and pushing it behind your ear. It’s unnervingly intimate, sweet in a way you can’t think about without feeling overcome. You lean into it, propped up on your elbow for leverage.

“You wanna take it slow, then?” he asks.

“It ain’t about that,” you say, resisting the urge to close your eyes when his thumb smooths at the thin skin at your cheekbone. “I just want you like this.”

His throat bobs as he nods. You let your eyes flicker over him, over the blush that extends from his ears to his solar plexus. So, that was a memory. Not a fantasy.

“Yeah,” Steve murmurs. “Yeah, we can do that.”   
  
The smile he gives you is soft, but it crinkles at the corners of his eyes in a way that’s almost too familiar. You think you’ve seen this look many times. In the height of a sweltering summer sat on a fire escape as you watched a city get a second wind with the setting sun right before your eyes, you’ve seen it in a face so young it makes your chest hurt just thinking about it. 

You’ve seen it after an op when your blood was still buzzing and he came to your perch covered in soot and blood saying  _ you know, you’re not too bad with that thing, _ when you tried to look back at him the same way you looked at the girls in a dance hall and said  _ I bet you say that to all the girls _ , when you’d both stifle your laughing like it was the first time you’d ever told him that.

There’s the smallest pause, just so you can sear this into your brain, hide it away somewhere it won’t be tainted or tampered with.

Steve cuts your thoughts short when he cants his hips up, drags a thin sound from your lips before you can even try to respond, hips jerking with it. You’re getting friction, and it’s enough for now, but God, you want more. Need more. You want to rush, to get inside of him or let him get inside of you, but everything feels too amplified, too needy for so much precision.

You can have this for now. There will be time for more later. It's comforting, knowing that this doesn’t have to end, that you can stay this way for as long as you want.

If you had it your way, you think you might stay like this for hours. Days, even.

You lean back down, sliding your good arm beneath Steve and grabbing him around the waist, pressing him flush against you, relieved at the closeness, at the heat building deep in the core of you, slow and sure, intensifying when you roll your hips down once again.

This time, Steve meets the movement in a way that feels better than before, now that you’re all but glued together, his hands all over you. It feels...it feels right, being pressed this close to him, bodies fitting together like puzzle pieces.   
  
Perhaps that’s the reason you always found your mind straying, grasping at glimpses of ink-stained fingers and crooked noses, at the thought that you weren’t always alone and at the mercy of others. If Steve was able to feel, to dream under the ice, was it you he tried and failed to reach for?

You felt that the first time you were plunged into an insulin induced coma, and then the first time they put you on ice, left hand pressing up against the metal door as you blearily thought  _ someone’s coming for me, someone has to be coming for me, _ and if you knew who it was, it didn’t matter, because you were plunged into darkness for weeks, months, years at a time, and woke up feeling like nothing more than a bundle of flesh and nerves, only understanding order and the pain that soon followed.

The idea that all of it is over, that you won’t be handed over or dragged back is hard to swallow. You’ve tried hard not to think about what will happen beyond the safe house, where you will be once this strange chapter of your life ends, and you don’t want to do it now, not when you’re as far away from pain and subordinance as you can possibly be.

“Bucky, hey,” Steve says, just loud enough to break you out of the spell. “You okay?”

You nod and you lean downward to let him kiss you, trying not to think about how wrong the name still feels, like an ill fitting coat you’re trying and failing to squeeze into. You don’t know who James Buchanan Barnes is anymore, you aren’t sure if you can try to be him, but you want to, and you don’t know how to  _ stop _ wanting to.

“Yeah,” you mutter against his mouth, stealing another peck. You aren’t sure if you’re lying or not. “I’m alright.”

It’s enough to sate him. Yourself, too. You grind forward hard enough to cut your wandering thoughts short, to drag an honest to God  _ whine _ from Steve’s mouth, and that enraptures you all over again, helps you find the momentum you lost, evolving it into a hot, rough rhythm the two of you have no trouble following.

Steve’s hands are at either side of your face again and you’re clutching his hip hard with your right hand, surely bruising him, but you can’t stop now. He could be bruising you, too, and the thought of that makes your head spin, makes you tighten up from your balls to the small of your back, and—

“Oh,  _ God _ ,” you choke out, coming hard and fast. You’re spilling between your bodies and onto your stomach, over Steve’s dick, hot and urgent. It makes the slide easier and you don’t stop moving through it, feeling Steve’s movements grow just as needy, just as feverish, and it must be while you’re trying and failing to breathe that he goes over the edge, but you’re bitter that you miss it. 

You’re bitter that you miss the sound he makes and the look on his face, only catching the tail end of it as your eyes focus and adjust.

His hair is damp, clinging to his brow. There’s a fine sheen of sweat on his face, on his throat, and his lips are darker, bruised from kissing. Your mouth is tingling with it, craving it all over again as you look him over, feeling like something has been knocked loose inside of you.

The first time you touched yourself felt nothing like this.

Yes, you felt good, but you didn’t feel like  _ this. _ You didn’t feel unraveled or blissful, but now you do, to the point that your body seems to finally give up on keeping you upright and lucid and you rest heavily against Steve, forehead leaning against his collarbone as you half-listen for a wheeze, a whistle in his lungs, but there’s none. Just smooth, albeit labored, breathing.

His hand comes to the back of your neck, fingers sliding up into your hair. You find yourself sighing into it, a shiver rolling down your spine at the sensation of him tracing over your scalp, unspeakably gentle.

There’s nowhere for either of you to be. No trouble knocking at the door.

So, you’ll let yourself have this.


	12. Chapter 12

You roll off of Steve eventually, lying close, sides pressing up against each other, not daring to break the comfortable silence that’s fallen over the room, only disturbed by the fall of rain against the windows. Come and sweat are drying on your skin, turning it tacky, but you can’t bring yourself to move.

Steve is glancing over at you every minute or so, his chest rising and falling much slower than before, skin looking less flushed. When you look back, still disoriented, breath still jagged and failing to slow, he rests his ankle against yours—another small gesture, but a grounding one.

You seem to float in a haze for sometime after that, just far enough away from reality, from the weight of your grief, that you can breathe. The air smells and tastes of sex, even after Steve disappears and returns with a towel to wipe away the messes between your legs. He rolls closer after that, lying on his side facing you.

You’ve been in this position before. You’ve been in this position many times.

“You said I was talking in my sleep, that first night we were here,” you say quietly, turn your head to look at him. “Has that happened anymore?”

Steve’s eyes scan over you, and he’s far from tense as it happens. “A little, but not much,” he says. “Most of it is in Russian. You say names once in a while, but that’s all I can really make out save for the few words I recognize.”   
  
Your brows knit together, “Names?”

“None I recognized, save for one,” Steve says, obviously trying to soften the blow. “Nat’s. You said it last night.”

It’s easier to swallow than anything else. You breathe out slowly, shutting your eyes for a moment. “Doesn’t surprise me,” you say. “She’s hard to forget.”

“Can’t help wondering what she was like,” Steve says after a long moment. “You said you knew here when she was pretty young.”   
  
It’s not your story to tell, not really, but you won’t divulge her secrets. Just your own.

“She was six, I think,” you tell him. “Quiet. Curious. I still don’t know how they found her or why they took her, or who she was before. She didn’t look scared like the other girls were, but that was...she was a  _ kid _ . Of course she was scared. We were all prisoners there. I was there to train them, but I ended up...I tried to be kind to them. Even then. When my—” you bite back  _ handlers _ , for his sake more than your own. “The people in charge of it all found out, saw Natalia, saw the other girls trusted me, they didn’t like it at first. They hated it, because it defeated the point of the program, but then they thought they could use it to their advantage.”   
  
_ Don’t be so hasty,  _ someone had hissed. _ Look at the way they hang onto his words, study his methods. This may be the way. _

_Let the dog play with the pups,_ they said. Like was it was _funny._

“They were wrong,” you continue. “They stopped paying attention, left me as the only set of eyes and ears during their missions. I think that’s why I remember so much of the Red Room. I wasn’t on the ice or wiped since I needed to remember the girls and what I had to teach them.”

There’s so much you know you had no control over, so many lives you didn’t want to take, and maybe one day you’ll be able to put it behind you, but this—thrusting guns and knives into the hands of children. That’s something you can’t ever forgive yourself for.

“There must have been more, but there were only ten that I knew of,” you say, opening your eyes and turning your head toward Steve. “Olga, Irina, Katya, Tanya, Klara, Evelina, Liliya, Violetta, Yelena, and Natalia. All of them were taken from somewhere, but not all of them knew that. For some of them, that was their lives, but the others...they had homes, families they wanted to go back to. I used to hear them talking to each other, or...God, in their sleep, crying out. There would be deep cover missions for days at a time, when it was just me and one or two of them.”

That, you remember clearly. A stakeout in Oslo, watching a target for hours from a small, filthy window while Yelena, no older than ten, had slept fitfully on the drafty floor. Each of the girls were pushed, but the ones considered the best were pushed the hardest, and Yelena fell into that category. She still had a splatter of blood on her face from killing her previous target.

You were there only as muscle, or in case something went wrong. For a very long time, that was your only purpose—a watcher in the wings, a guard, a protector.

When she woke, trembling all over, murmuring so quickly and frantically you couldn’t make the words out, something in your mind gave and snapped despite the grip your handlers still held on you. You had stepped away from your perch in the window, pressed your hand to her arm, rubbed it firmly as if you could chase the chill out of her. She remained tense, curled into herself, through it all. You tried Russian, you tried Ukranian, you tried English—which felt so broken and foreign in your mouth then—, and then you let your instincts take over, the words rolling off your tongue easily.

_ Jal tê sovel, Lenochka. Klodol kiro jakha. Sovel akana, šej. _

She’d stopped, turning to face you, and it wasn’t confusion on her face. It was  _ comprehension _ , written all over her damp, blotchy face. You recall being just as shocked as she was, a memory of the life and the family you lost being knocked loose in the span of a breath, the language you were taught from birth pushing to the front of your mind.

Yelena was the last you ever expected, with her light hair and delicate features, but now, you realize the only other Roma you knew were your mother and your sister. It’s not as if you had much to go off of, all but isolated from an entire half of yourself, and it was only when you were older that you understood why.

So, this is why you were closer to Yelena than the others sometimes. Why she trusted you. When you dig deeper, you realize you told her to call you—

“One of the girls asked for my name once,” you say. “And I didn’t know why, then, but I told them to call me Yasha.”   
  
It’s no wonder the memory of it struck such a chord, why it felt just as right as all the others. Yasha was the name your mother called you, the name you remembered first, the one you let Natalia and Yelena and the others call you.  _ Yashen’ka _ _,_ Natalia had said a few times, but none of the others did. A nickname of a nickname.

“They’re not good memories,” you say. “But I had the girls, and they had me. I cared for them. I don’t think Natalia will ever tell you, so don’t ask, but at the hospital, she trusted me for a reason. Even if she didn’t want to. You’re not the first person I tried to smuggle out.”   
  
It’s a faint memory, but it’s there. The rush, the panic, the plans that attempted to hold in your fraying brain. It hangs heavy in the air. Doesn’t need explaining, because it falls into place almost immediately. You watch it all happen on Steve’s face.

“Is that how she —”

“If that was the case, I would have been SHIELD’s property,” you answer. “I tried to get her out before that. I tried to get all of them out.”

This must be the cause of that merciless wipe, the one where you bit clean through your tongue and broke two of your back teeth. A tech had been killed, but from there on it’s a bloody, senseless blur, dark and cold for so, so long.

And then you woke up in a holding cell so deep below the ground your ears popped. You still had slush in your hair, limbs still weak and uncooperative. It must have been months, maybe even longer. You could tell by the numbness in your fingers, refusing to fade.

That was when Alexander Pierce walked in, and even then, you knew things would be very, very different.

“It fell apart anyway,” you say, turning onto your side to face Steve. “I don’t think I’ll ever know where the ones who survived are, but it’s better that way.”   
  
Even if they died, they died free.

Steve is watching you with an expression you can’t quite interpret, not making a single move to touch you, though you can tell he wants to. You wish he would.

“Buck, it could have been the push they needed,” he says. “They saw there was a way out, and eventually they found it again.”   
  
“It wasn’t their fault, that first time,” you say, something hollow panging in your chest. “Some of the little ones refused to go. Some were too ...they only knew what they were taught. It was harder for them, because they didn’t know it was wrong. I barely had my head screwed on straight, but I knew that goddamn place would kill them soon enough, and I knew I couldn’t erase the things I did or what I taught them, but I could give them freedom. I could make sure they weren’t made into anything like I was. That’s why I would have came for you if HYDRA got their way. If I couldn’t get away, at least I got someone else out.”   
  
The air feels heavier. The waning grey of the sky has turned Steve’s eyes to a steely, soft blue, skin almost too pale. He never tanned easily, you think. He always ended up sunburnt, cherry red from his forehead to his toes. 

You give into the temptation to reach forward, just splaying your hand over his bicep, fingers lingering on his shoulder, over the faint smattering of freckles there.

“You always were the better out of the two of us,” Steve finally says, but it’s the last thing you want to hear.

“That’s not true,” you murmur, shaking your head. “You know it’s not.”

“I mean it,” Steve insists, staring you down and looking so earnest it makes you feel weak and shaky, even when you’re not moving a muscle. “You’re  _ good,  _ Bucky. You’ve always been good. You’re the bravest person I ever met. And don’t tell me that’s not you anymore, ‘cause it is and I’m never gonna stop seeing it. I’m never gonna stop thinking it.”   
  
There’s a hot swell in your chest, painful and caught between your ribs. “I think you’re getting me confused with yourself, Rogers,” you try to say wryly.   
  
“Where do you think I learned it from?” Steve asks.

It catches you off-guard, and you have to stifle the breath that wants to punch its way out of you, ignore the twist in your guts. The thought of such a thing is strange. You know he must have saw you as someone who knew everything for a time, and you  _ did _ . Steve was the one sick in bed most of the time, but you found ways to show him all around Vinegar Hill, up and down the streets, got him to know people outside of his building. You’d walk with him to the grocer when his ma was on her shift, teach him how to sneak into movies if you couldn’t afford it. You weren’t the one to fuel his fire, since he had that long before you met him, but you taught him that there were other ways to be street smart without using his fists or his big mouth.

This is how Steve sees it, but maybe you two taught each other. You helped him and he helped you, That was just the way it was.

You and him, fatherless and brought up by women who worked to the bone to make sure you had food in your bellies and somewhere to sleep, and then over time, you brought each other up. Cleaned dirt from wounds and bandaged bleeding knuckles and noses. You forced him to breathe when his lips were turning blue, when his lungs couldn’t bring in any air. Clutched him close during bone-numbing winters, counted his whistling breath while trying not to wonder if his next would be his last.

He pulled you off Zola’s table and stopped any more poison from being pumped into you, tried to stop the corruption before it could set in. You lifted a pile of concrete off him in Lviv. He set dislocated shoulders and your broken fingers with half-remembered knowledge of his mother’s methods. You took him apart in a matchbox flat in Paris. He tried to put you back together, in a damp, freezing tent in the thick of a Belgian forest.

It’s all raw and boiling inside of you. You feel picked clean, flayed to the bone, like he can see right through you all over again. Like the night before you shipped out for London. When you swallowed down your cowardice and kissed him, knowing you wouldn’t get a chance to do it otherwise.

This is another piece of evidence that your memories were never gone. They’ve only ever been hidden, scrambled by the endless wipes and pushed to the back of your mind, waiting to return once it healed.

Your mouth pulls at one corner, ever so slightly. You can’t tell if it’s a grimace or an attempt at a smile. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a stubborn asshole?” you ask.

Steve’s hand comes up to curl around your wrist, thumb sliding over your wrist. You can’t feel it, but the sight seeps some of the tension in your shoulders. “Nah,” he says quietly, a smile tugging softly at his lips. “No one.”

When he leans in, pressing your mouths together in a soft, slow kiss, you shut your eyes, breathing into it. It feels better than the others, somehow. There’s less haste to it. Less fear of the other changing his mind.

It makes you feel hot all over again, the longer it stretches out. When Steve breaks away for a breath, there’s a faint sense of urgency low in the pit of your stomach.   
  
You forgot about this part of the serum, and the memory of being able to recover quickly sends a dark curl of want into your blood.

“I wanna do something for you,” you mutter against Steve’s chin, and you realize just how much you mean those words as they slip past your lips. “Lie back.”   
  
Steve does, already looking tense with anticipation. He lets you mouth over his throat, over his collarbone. His heart rate spikes when you suck a hardened, pink nipple into your mouth, a quiet sound held back between his teeth when you pull away, run your lips and your tongue down his toned stomach, letting your body guide you, familiarize yourself with his body all over again.

When you curl your fingers around the length of him, when you feel him get harder with every stroke, needy all over again, you think you can get used to this.

When you swallow him down, tasting heat and salt and skin, you think you’ll be very much all right with that.

-

Steve goes over the edge again with your name on his lips and his fists twisted in the sheets. You watch him shake through it and swallow down everything he gives. You’ll taste him in the back of your throat for the rest of the day, even if you brush your teeth, and that has you aching, leaking against your stomach.

You pull off, feeling his hand come to rest at the back of your neck, lingering just for a moment. His chest rises and falls almost frantically. His flush has returned, even darker than before. This time, he’s shaky all over, weak with his release, but he still pushes up onto his elbows, looking down at you.

“You’re not gonna let me leave you hanging, are you?” Steve asks.

You wouldn’t dare fight him on it. Just the mental image of his mouth on you has you feeling dizzy.

“Better not,” you say, and you think you sound both exactly like and utterly unlike yourself. You crawl up his body, almost shivering at the feeling of his hands sliding down your sides. “Better fucking not.”   
  
It doesn’t take much convincing for you to roll over onto your back, Steve mimics your previous technique, his slick mouth running over your body, leaving your nerves sparking like live wires. He swallows you down like it’s his  _ job _ _,_ and it’s just as filthy, just hot as you wanted it to be. 

You resist the urge to chase your release, to thrust up into his mouth, but you just slide your fingers into his hair, watch his half-closed eyes and his hollowed out cheeks, feel the faint scratch of his stubble on your inner thighs.

Going over the edge doesn’t take much longer. The swirl of his tongue and the tightness of his throat as he takes you all the way down is all you need to groan through it, low and deep in your chest as your toes curl against the mattress, body tensing all over.

When Steve pulls off, long after you’ve softened, you almost miss the heat of him, but you need time. You watch him while you catch your breath, his cheek resting against your thigh, and bring your right hand to his cheek, thumb sliding over the seam of his lips, lingering over the swell of the lower one.

He leans into it like you’ve done this before. Maybe you have. He looks as blissed out as you are, breath slow and warm against your skin, getting even easier as your hand comes to rest at the back of his head.

You aren’t sure how long you stay that way, one leg thrown over Steve’s back, his head resting against your thigh, but it doesn’t matter. You feel lax and content. You’ve never breathed this easily before.

“C’mere,” you say, gravelly. “Get up here.”   
  
That’s all Steve needs to hear, because he’s moving immediately, flopping back into the spot he abandoned, lying on his stomach.

His eyes are closed, lashes dark and heavy. “I missed you,” he murmurs, wrecked and muffled, and you know it has nothing to do with the sex. It never loosened his tongue. Unlike you, Steve never needed release or a drink to say what was on his mind. “God, I missed you.”

You didn’t realize you missed him, but your body did. Your hands did and your bones did and your blood did, too. Every part of you knew something was missing, even when you were too far gone to know what it was.

-

In the bathroom, you relieve yourself, all but avoiding your reflection in the mirror as you rinse your hands and face. You don’t have to look to know you have color in your cheeks, your eyes are clearer, your posture is loose and relaxed.

Even if it’s temporary, you don’t want to revel in this too much. The last thing you want is to be lulled into a false sense of security. A sense of content, of peace, is a foreign concept to you. You speak twenty different languages, but suffering has become your mother tongue. It’s only a matter of time before you find everything tainted with it again.

You grip either side of the sink, breathe out, and return to the bedroom. Your mind is racing too much to fall back into that state of unawareness you left behind. The memories, the endless thoughts, need to be sapped out, and there’s only one way to do it.

-

_ I didn’t expect two entries in one day. _

_ I write most things in bullet points, but that’s only the memories that feel incomplete or too blurry to make sense of. I don’t think I wrote in a journal before, but that could be because I had nothing to write about or didn’t want anyone snooping in it, but I know I wrote letters in the army. To Steve, to Ma, to Rebecca. They might be at the Smithsonian, but I couldn’t stay in that place any longer than I did. It made my life feel like some made-up story. I don’t have to have my head screwed on straight to know it was all horse shit in there. People want to act like we were heroes, but we were just like all the other poor bastards who enlisted or drafted. We wanted all the krauts shooting at us dead and we wanted to go home. _

_ I know this much is true, but it’s just stating the facts. It’s like repeating something I’ve already been told. I know it hasn’t been long, but I don’t want to be selective. I want all of these memories to feel like mine, whether they’re good or bad. It’s mine to process. Mine to feel. If I have anything, I have them. _

_ Everything I told Steve so far still feels blurry. There seems to be a something dividing up each part of my life, like chapters in a book, all featuring different parts of me. I don’t know if I’m any of them. I can’t fit in any previous mold. The right thing to do is make peace with it, but I’m not peaceful. If everyone in charge of me wasn’t dead, they would be by now. I’m not above violence. I never was. Maybe the serum heightened that, took that ugly part of me and made it even uglier, but maybe it made me survive, too. In more ways than one. _

_ Taking down what’s left of HYDRA is something else I have. Even if it’s not with my hands, I can crack the foundations of them. Stop them from spreading more than they already have. _

_ I’ll do it for myself and for everyone else they’ve destroyed. I can’t bring back the lives I took or wash the blood from my hands, but I can stop it from happening again. I failed in the Red Room, but I succeeded here. If I hadn’t found the file on the floor of the vault, they would have gotten their way and took Steve right out from under everyone’s noses. I can allow myself this victory. He’s out of harm’s way for now, and that couldn’t have been done without me. _

_ I wonder if it sunk in yet, what they would have done to him. I hope it didn’t. I hope he never has an idea of what I went through. I hope he never understands it. I don’t  _ _ want _ _ him to understand it. _

_ Here’s something I do remember, and I know I never told Steve because he somehow never asked.  _

_ I remember the reason Zola continued his experiments on me, the pig-faced bastard. I remember him asking me if my blood felt clean now that all the corruption was being burnt out. That’s something I could never get out of my head, not completely. He got a sick kick out of it, but his original reasons died with him. After that, I was just another experiment, just another cog in HYDRA’s machine. It’s all a means to an end for them, but the end might be fast approaching this time without a chance of them licking their wounds in the shadows. _

_ If I could have anything, I would want that before anything else. I can’t think about what happens next until they're gone, even though I’m tempted to. _

_ I can’t make that mistake again. _

-

You write it all sitting at the edge of the bed, back to Steve, who is undoubtedly awake. Even with his eyes shut, he’s radiating restlessness. He’s only ever truly still when he’s asleep, something you’ve either just begun to notice or are noticing all over again.

When you set the book down, you lie back against the pillows, in no rush to get dressed again. For once, it feels good, being this bare. The air rushes over your skin pleasurably, and your body being the furthest thing from a weapon is a new, relieving thing.   
  
Steve’s eyes open when he feels you move close again, and he seems as unsure of reaching out as you are, hesitant to break this moment of ease.

“Tell me something I never knew about you,” you say, just loud enough to be heard.   
  
He looks a little more awake, then, brows knitting together. “You knew me pretty well,” he says quietly. “There’s not much I can—” a strange look crosses over his face. “Actually, there is something I never told you.”   
  
You say nothing, waiting for him to finish.

“I wasn’t born in Brooklyn, and I wasn’t born on Fourth of July,” Steve says. “It’s on my birth certificate, but I...it’s a long story, if you’re up for it.”

That gets your attention, piques your own interest and the interest of the person trying to claw his way out of you, demanding to take center stage.   
  
“Doesn’t look like either of us are going anywhere,” you say, flicker your gaze over him—over his messy, damp hair, his eyes, still blown dark with lingering want. “We got time.”

Steve doesn’t exactly smile, but his eyes crinkle like he does. You aren’t sure how to feel, heart lurching and twisting despite the knots loosening in your stomach.

“My ma told me the whole story, not long before she passed,” Steve says, and he’s not looking at you as he begins. Maybe he never had the opportunity to grieve either, maybe he can’t face it. “She told me she knew it was always gonna be that way, even if she died of old age, but she told me she was...she was never married to my father. They wanted it, but life kept getting in the way. They were young, he enlisted, and when he got leave, he bought her a ring, but she didn’t know she was pregnant with me till he shipped out again. Hell, he didn’t even know. They planned on meeting in Brooklyn when the war ended, and I guess she planned on telling him then, whether I was born or not, but he died not long after she got her ticket. She didn’t have anybody. Never knew her parents, lived with her grandparents till they died, and then it was just her and a few girls in a boarding house. It was her only shot, so she took it.”   
  
You can’t quite remember Sarah’s face, but you know she was a decent woman. Had the same stubbornness in her that Steve did—does. She was the reason he grew up the way he did.

“She was pretty far along when it was time for her to leave. The girls at the house helped her out. One was widowed, let her wear her old wedding ring so no one would say anything. All she had to say was her husband was in the war and they didn’t bat an eye. Far as they knew, she was Sarah Rogers, and she wasn’t sticking around for long,” Steve says, and you’re not looking at him either. You’re both looking up and around, trying to find the screen playing the movie reel of her life. “She was...God, she was about ready to go when the day came. She didn’t care, she just kept to herself, decided she’d stick it out. It was only a week at most, ten days at worst. She thought she could make it.”   
  
You let your eyes turn to him then. “But,” you say.

_ “But,” _ Steve echoes. “The next two days, she had some of the worst pains of her life. Couldn’t get out of bed and she said she knew I wanted out. She wanted to wait until she was in the States, that way I’d be the first generation on either side to be born anywhere but Ireland, but that wasn’t the case. She’s all the way down in steerage and—well, she told it better than I’m telling it now, but she went into labor the second night. She was convinced I wasn’t gonna make it because I was almost a month early, but it was happening. No midwife anywhere, just a couple of other women helping her out. I think she said one had her baby at home by herself, so she knew what she was doing, and it took some time, but Ma made it through and so did I. She said she barely remembered anything aside from how bad the ship was rocking from a storm and how that scared her more than anything else because she thought we were gonna sink, but the storm passed, and everything just sort of...slowed down after that. She was just keeping her eye on me, trying to figure out where to go from there.”   
  
It’s all incredibly easy to envision—the salty sea air and the ship rocking with every choppy wave that hit it. The musty smell of the cabin, Sarah’s screams and curses echoing through the halls until her cries mixed with Steve’s. He must have been born screaming. There’s no other way for someone like him to come into the world.

Faintly, you recall being told you were born the same way, screaming bloody murder until the doctors handed you to your mother.

“They still had almost a week left, so Ma was figuring out what to do. She was a lot like me before I met Erskine, but she wasn’t as bad, so it was gonna take her longer to recover and I was small as it was, so when the day finally came for them to dock in Ellis Island, the women she was bunked with helped her make it out like she went into labor a few hours ago. She had low iron, and she wasn’t doing as well as she thought she was, so she needed to get to a hospital regardless. Once she said that, they let her go through immigration first and got her to a hospital, then they took me to the incubators in Coney Island. She took some time and recovered, had one of those girls from the ferry with her the whole time, and she offered Ma to stay with her and her cousins until she found somewhere to live and till I was ready to go. After that, a doctor comes in, has her fill out a birth certificate, and the first thing she notices is that the birthplace is in New York. She signs my dad’s name, signs herself as Rogers, and fills my name in. She said she named me on the ferry, called me Stiofan after her grandfather, but I’m Steven on paper. She was a Doyle when she had me if you wanna get technical about that, too. So, that’s the truth. I was born somewhere in Ireland on June 28th, my parents weren’t married, and I’m probably more Doyle than I am Rogers.”

You open your mouth to speak, but Steve beats you to it.

“And the thing is,” he continues. “I don’t feel like she lied to me or purposely kept it all a secret. Everyone was like that back then. Plenty of kids didn’t know their real birthday or didn’t have a birth certificate, so when she told me, I wasn’t angry with her. I just felt better knowing something about her since she was always so private about her life before Brooklyn.”

“Guess that’s why her and my ma got along so well,” you say, the words tumbling from your lips before you can stop them. “They both wanted a fresh start.”   
  
Steve, thankfully, isn’t phased by it. He only brings his gaze over to you. “They were happier for it. Maybe they were onto something,” he says, quiet and serious. “Maybe it’s the right thing to do.”

You think about that.

You think about that for a very long time.

There must be somewhere you can go, hide yourself away from any stragglers from HYDRA. The word going around the higher-ups must be that you’re dead, but you’d rather be a paranoid hermit than leave yourself out in the open for anyone to find.

Maybe you’ll go somewhere no one will expect to find you. Texas or Utah. You’ll work out in the open, let your skin get tanned and allow your wiry form to fill out. That might be enough to keep anyone else off your back, too. CIA, Interpol, HYDRA, SHIELD, all of them.   
  
After that, you’ll leave the country. Go to Mexico and then keep going, maybe until you get to Argentina, and then a plane from there to some tourist trap of a city—Paris, perhaps. You’ll look different by then, hopefully. A couple of years in the sun and eating solid foods might do you good. It will allow your brain to heal as much as your body will. New name, new clothes. You just might be able to make it.

But do you want to do it alone?   
  
You aren’t sure how much time passes until you break the silence that’s fallen over the room, until you say, “Pick somewhere to start over.”

Steve turns back to you, brows knit together, before his gaze flickers somewhere over your shoulder. He’s thinking about it, trying to give you a real answer, and you realize he’s always done this. Always thought his answers through with you. Is it because he knew you’d listen, or because he felt comfortable enough that he knew he wouldn’t be judged?   
  
It wasn’t always like that, you think. It took time, even as close as you were. Once everything was laid out on the table and you knew how you felt about each other, that’s when he began being more frank than ever.

“If I could erase everything and start from the beginning,” Steve says. “I think I’d wanna go home. Not...God, not  _ back _ . I can’t reverse it. I can’t even think about that, but I’d go back to Brooklyn. If I knew no one would recognize me and I could just be a face in the crowd. Someone’s neighbor. Just no one. If I could do that, I’d go back in a heartbeat.”

Somehow, it surprises you.

“Why wouldn’t you want to reverse it?” you ask.

“I don’t want to lose what I have here,” Steve says. “There’s so much I could do now that I couldn’t do before. I still have people I love. I have…” he trails off, swallows something down. You wonder why he won’t just say it. “The future ain’t so bad, Buck. I’m starting to see that, and now you have a chance to see it, too.”   
  
Some deep, sleeping part of you is able to tell you that Steve Rogers is far from an optimist. He’s all spit and vinegar and bitterness when he wants to be, but he never allows it to cloud his perception. Or at least he didn’t. You’re not sure you fully know the man lying beside you, the same way he doesn’t know you, but you can tell that at his roots, he’s more of a realist than anything else.

Another sense of having a clean slate. You might have to get to know each other all over again. The idea of it is comforting. You won’t need to be the person he remembers, because he’s changed, too. Irrevocably so. Made and unmade and made all over again, forced into a new world he had no choice but to adapt to.

Maybe you’re not so different, after all.

-

At some point, you put your clothes back on. In the opposite corner of the room, Steve pulls on boxers and a long-sleeved shirt before he strips the damp sheets off the bed, disappears into the basement before he returns with a laundry basket, filled with clothes of yours that mysteriously went missing and what looks like his shirts in there.

“That’s another reason I wouldn’t want to go back,” Steve says, dropping the basket on the floor. “Don’t gotta wait the whole day for dry clothes.”   
  
You surprise yourself by snorting. “Don’t gotta leave your unmentionables on display for the whole street to see,” you mutter as you move past him. “I think I saw some girl’s on the sidewalk once. Her bloomers floated right down.”   
  
A laugh, a real one, bursts out of Steve. “God, I didn’t even remember that till you said it,” he says. “I think we were about eleven. Twelve, maybe. It was my neighbor’s. Cora. She stuck her head out the window cussing a blue streak at us for laughing. I think the whole block heard her. Ma made us both go apologize to her and she shut the door in our faces.”   
  
It comes to you with so much clarity for such a mundane memory. Something you would have forgotten in enough time without HYDRA intervening, but it’s clear. Your cheeks and your stomach muscles cramped up from laughing, the sound of Steve coughing between every fit of giggles between the two of you. You didn’t remember laughing at anything before. You’ve recalled being happy, but never being  _ giddy .  _

Something like a smile pulls at the corners of your mouth, and you doubt you would have accomplished that with a clear head. It’s all the phantom pressure of Steve’s hands rubbing at your muscles doing it, the orgasms coaxed out of you.

“That part sounds familiar,” you say, and Steve looks up, then, looking loose and almost dazed. You aren’t sure how long it’s going to last for either of you, but you’d be fools not to take advantage of it.

So, you nod him over. You say, “C’mere,” and he does. He lets you bring your hand up to his nape and drag him into a slow, lingering kiss that doesn’t hold any heat at all. You just want to feel, get as close as you can. 

The last thing you want is another wall to start forming. You’ll keep breaking it down if you have to, even if it peels a little more of your skin back every single time, exposes you until Steve can see every ugly part of you.

You open your mouth when he probes at the seam of it with his tongue, and once again, let yourself go on autopilot.

-

The rest of the evening is a slow blur. It’s neither light nor heavy, but somewhere in between, and you don’t feel much of anything save for the rare laxity of your body, the lingering cloud of bliss still muddling your thoughts. 

Your version of the serum is almost as strong as Steve’s, meaning you find yourself hard all over again, but there’s no urgency to it, no haste to move forward. You’re content to be pressed close, to enjoy this without getting the release your body craves. Steve is pressing against your thigh at one point, but like you, he makes no move to do anything about it. There’s no rush to any of it, and the idea of that, the idea that you don’t have to take all you can get before the rug is pulled from under you is a relief, helps you slow down and follow the rhythm of your body.

Time becomes a malleable thing. It’s irrelevant, and by the time you realize it’s midnight, you find you’re both ravenous.

“I wish we had something better,” Steve says as he empties a second can of chili into the pot on the stove. “Feel like we’ve always been eating out of cans and boxes since we were about seventeen, eighteen.”

You only grimace in response when he shakes white flakes into another pot. According to the box, it’s mashed potatoes.

“Never seen a potato like that before,” you say, resting the small of your back against the counter   
  
“Well,” Steve says blithely, and hands you a wooden spoon. “Get acquainted with each other because you’re keeping an eye on them.”

-

In every memory you have, there's never a house because you never, ever lived in one. It was apartments, then barracks and tents and safehouses, and then labs and the Bear Pit, the Red Room, Siberia. The bank vault.

The cabin feels lived in. It feels like someone’s spent time here. You know Natalia said she lived here after defecting, that a friend of hers comes out here sometimes. Maybe they come together, but you aren’t sure. It feels like less of a safehouse and more of a hideaway.

You haven’t changed your opinion on it. You still feel locked up, but you’d rather be here than rotting away in a real prison. You’d rather be trapped here  _ with _ Steve than squat in abandoned buildings, risking being caught _without him._

Eventually, you eat in silence, save for the clink of spoons clinking against bowls. You both have big appetites, meaning there’s nothing left in either pot, but you feel sated. Warm.   


“You know,” Steve says. “You look like a mountain man.”   
  
You shrug. “You’re the one who dragged me out here,” you say through a mouthful of instant mashed potatoes. “Gotta blend in with my surroundings.”

“Quit talking and swallow your food, you jerk,” Steve says, but it’s light-hearted, laced with something like fondness.

You feel yourself smirk, ever so slightly, and you let him see it. For once, you don’t want to push him away. Not even when his ankle bumps against yours under the table, a small but unnervingly affectionate gesture, leaving warmth blooming furiously in the core of your chest.

It’s peaceful, in a way, being secluded from the rest of the world. Though, your definition of peace is different from others. To you, peace is no gunfire or kickback from a rifle, no blood on your hands, no orders, no pain.   
  
You aren’t sure what Steve’s definition of it is. Maybe he found peace in the adrenaline pumping through his blood, or the thrill of a firefight. You can’t seem to put your finger on it. There’s more to him than what he shows to others, and maybe he’s as blind to it as the rest of the world is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jal tê sovel, Lenochka. Klodol kiro jakha. Sovel akana, šej. = Go to sleep, Lenochka. Close your eyes. Sleep now, girl.


	13. Chapter 13

There’s something meditative to scrubbing the grime from the pots. The heat of the water and the squish of the sponge. There’s no tact to it, just movement. You don’t have to think when you’re elbow deep in suds and rinsing stray chunks of food down the drain, grimacing inwardly at the sensation.

“Can I tell you something?” Steve asks as he dries a bowl.

You’re learning that all variations of the question mean  _ can I tell you something about the past? _

You only hum in response.

“Not that it means a whole lot ‘cause everyone does it,” Steve says. “But it was always this way. You washing, me drying. Used to tell me I had butter fingers, ‘cause I broke so many glasses.”   
  
It doesn’t sound familiar, but you have no reason not to believe him. You swallow down your frustration at the empty spot clouding your thoughts, hiding the glimpse of a memory away from you, and turn the sink off.

“You know I’m not gonna remember everything,” you say around a slow, measured breath. “That’s not possible. Even for people like us.”   
  
Steve doesn’t exactly deflate as much as he squares up. He takes the rinsed wooden spoon you hand him, drying it with unnecessary precision. “I can’t hope for that,” he says quietly. “Don’t feel like I’m expecting the world from you, Buck. That’s not what I want.”

“Then what do you want?” you ask.

“What do  _ you _ want?” Steve shoots back.

“Stop acting like you’re taking my choices from me, Rogers,” you say, heated. “If you’re interfering, I’ll tell you to fuck off. Simple as that. Now answer the question.”   
  
He stops in his tracks, and so do you. You watch his expression turn from dejected, to defensive, to dejected again.

“I want you to remember,” Steve admits, not taking his eyes off of you. “Of course I want you to remember. I want us to trust each other again. I want to get to know you again, all of you. You keep thinking you can scare me off, but you won’t. I’ve seen and done some bad things, too. I have blood on my hands I can’t wash off, either. But, Buck, everything—”

“I know what you’re gonna say, Steve,” you say, but your voice comes out lower than you want it to, eyes slipping shut, hands gripping the edges of the counter. You can see red behind your eyelids, and you feel weariness tugging at your bones. All those bodies, all those pleas for mercy. You open your eyes, force yourself to look up at Steve’s determined face, already looking prepared to disagree with you. “I know they made me. I know they ripped my brain to shreds, but it was  _ my _ knife. It was  _ my _ gun,  _ my _ finger on the trigger. No one else’s.”   
  
“That’s not true,” Steve says, like he’s so goddamn sure. His eyes are locked onto yours, and it’s like he’s torn between unloading everything he’s thinking and swallowing it down for good. You think he’s been giving you this look his entire life. “You might have been holding a gun, but  _ you _ were the gun, Buck. They pointed and aimed, and you shot. You didn’t do it because you wanted to. You did it because whoever was calling the shots forced you to do it.”

Of course you know you weren’t able to make your own choices. If you thought any of it was right, you wouldn’t feel wound tight and sick with it. You wouldn’t feel the dark claws of your conditioning keep trying to seize hold of you over and over again, lurking in the shadows.   


“I still did it,” you mutter.   
  
“You know what else you did?” Steve bursts out. “You tried to save Natasha. You tried to save all those girls. You saved my life before you had any idea of who I was, and then you did it again. You killed those agents, you risked getting caught again, you gave us names and locations and...you did something good, Buck. You did it because you wanted to. You’re a good person. Even with everything they put in your head, you still tried to fight. You fought and you got out. That’s all that matters. That’s what I want. I want you to see that, and I want you to know this isn’t the end. You’re not gonna stop here or get thrown into a cell. You’re…” his throat bobs hard as his hand comes to your shoulder, warm and firm. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. That’s over. You’re  _ free _ , Bucky.”   


It’s all said with so much conviction, bursting out of him like it’s everything he’s been longing to say, and you’re tense with it, body taut, thoughts racing. You don’t agree, but you don’t think—you don’t  _ know— _

Your breath comes out in a harsh, tremoring rush. You want to speak, but no words come. You feel dazed with the realization. Peace, reprieve, a clean slate. Redemption isn’t something you can ask for, it isn’t something you can even imagine, but being free from your handlers, from HYDRA, it’s almost difficult to imagine.   
  
It leaves you rubbed raw from the inside out. Subservience has been written into the fibers of you, forcing you to serve a master for decades, and now there are no shackles, no loss of control.

Freedom is a strange concept, all but impossible to wrap your head around. You know you feel different, less like the asset and more like flesh and blood, but it’s another element of programming. Conditioning yourself to believe a new truth all over again. You almost feel sick with it.

“I don’t feel free,” you admit.

Steve looks like you’ve struck him.

He swallows hard. “Buck—“

“I was the soldier longer than I was anyone else,” you cut in. “Wanting to start over is one thing, but putting it behind me is another. I can’t just...I can’t get rid of what they put in my head because I’m gonna remember it. I’m gonna remember that before anything else and it’s gonna reopen all those goddamn stitches in my head and have me bleeding it all over the place. I don’t know what it’ll do to me so I can’t feel free of it. I can think about killing every  _ single _ motherfucker that had a hand in this, but that’s not gonna fix me. I got enough brains to know that’s not gonna fix me. It’s not gonna free me, even if I want it to.”   
  
It’s far from cruel, far from venomous, when Steve asks, “What will?”   
  
“I don’t know,” you say, quiet and drowned out by the sudden roar in your ears.

Steve’s hand is back on your shoulder, tighter than before, and this time, you’re grateful for the touch, resisting the urge to relax into it. “I don’t have all the answers,” he says. “I wish I did. I’m sorry.”   
  
“Nothing to apologize for,” you tell him, a poor attempt at reassurance. “Not your fault, anyway.”   
  
It’s obvious that he swallows a protest back. He doesn’t try to agree. He doesn’t say anything at all, just squeezes your bicep lightly before he lets go and walks away.

The loss of touch makes your insides twist into knots.

-

You have nothing left to give, nothing left to write. You feel sick and heavy with the weight of your memories. In your mind’s eye, there are tow-headed boys and curly-haired little girls, the kickback of a rifle, twenty languages on your tongue, and the dark claws of those very early years trying to sink into your chest.

Steve is already upstairs when you sit on the bed. You toss your pants in the corner, and getting under the covers, which now smell like nothing in particular. You’re far from tired, but this is what normal people do—they make dinner, eat it, and and go to bed. They don’t feel the slipperiness of blood on their hands or know blistering cold like an old friend. They don’t expect to wake up on an examination table every time they blink.

You watch the strong line of Steve’s back, the set of his shoulders, and he notices, turning to you without any urgency. “Where do we go from here?” he asks, and it’s a loaded question. It means everything and nothing all at once.

You don’t want to answer it.   
  
“I don’t have all the answers either,” you say, swallowing down any remaining apprehension you have. “But I know you’re not going distant on me now.”   
  
Everything in his body relaxes and he shakes his head. “Nah,” he says, and moves until he’s close enough to lean over. “Not unless you kick me out.”

Maybe you don’t have to say much right now, and maybe Steve doesn’t either. There’s no need to give this much thought.   
  
So, you bring your right hand to his jaw and seal your mouths together. You aren’t sure who shivers, who makes a sound, but it doesn’t matter. It’s enough to help you stop thinking, enough to distract yourself from the nauseating grief of your losses trying to creep in.

-

You don’t get far, not at all.   
  
At some point, Steve gets under the sheets with you, all smooth, warm skin and slow-moving hands. None of it is demanding, and even when you feel the faint hints of want creeping in, rapidly growing more familiar, it’s easy to ignore. Easy to focus on the slick heat of Steve’s mouth and the lazy way his tongue slides against yours. Kissing is effortless, easy, something your brain catches up with as quickly as your body does.

When the room is plunged into darkness, it’s easier to let your mind drift, let your thoughts stretch and twist into incoherence. You’re in the cabin. You’re in Paris. You’re in Brooklyn. There’s tree bark against your back and you’re in Belgium. It doesn’t matter, because Steve’s mouth on yours feels timeless. It’s something that belongs to you, above all else.

His breaths are slow and almost relieved when he breaks away, fanning against your throat. You feel far-off and strange, not quite lost but like you’ve floated off somewhere unreachable—away from your memories and who you might feel like right now.   
  
“Pretend everything was different,” you say, and it’s quiet, muffled, even to your own ears. “Everything went the way it was supposed to go and you went home after the war. You think you would’ve been happy?”

Your eyesight is sharp enough to see Steve when he lifts his head, meets your eyes.

“No,” Steve says, quiet and serious. “Maybe, I don’t know. I could have tried, but you wouldn’t have been there. I only remember two times in my life you weren’t around, and I…”

There’s something he isn’t telling you, but you aren’t sure you want to know what it is.

“I’d rather be here,” Steve finishes. “Hell, I’d rather be living under a bridge with you than even think of being anywhere else.”

It’s a way to diffuse the heaviness, you can tell, but it still cuts you to the core.

If you asked him to run, he would do it. No questions asked. He would follow your lead and leave his life behind, all because of you.

The thought is both terrifying and relieving.

You follow his lead, attempt to diffuse. “If I think of any nice bridges, I’ll let you know,” you say. “Plenty to choose from.”

“Anywhere that ain’t near the woods,” Steve says, and he’s easing off of you, keeping close, his body turned to the side, pressing against you. “All I ask.”   
  
“Too much damn green,” you agree, leg unconsciously brushing against his. You leave it pressed there, hesitant to move too far. Your eyes fall shut on their own. “Can’t hear any people.”   
  
“Kinda miss hearing sirens,” Steve says, and his hand comes to your chest, palm flat over your heart. “Stray cats. Drunks. Neighbors stomping around.”   
  
It sounds soothing, the endless noise. You try to picture it, all of it, accompanied by the occasional sound of a bus, a trolley, a train.

Between that, the warmth of Steve’s touch, the rush of his breathing, you slip into unawareness.

-

You don’t dream, but still, you wake with a start.

It’s slow and uncoordinated, limbs slow and useless like you’re sweating off a sedative. Someone is gasping, and it isn’t you.

For once, it isn’t you.

Your eyes are bleary in your attempts to open them, barely adjusting to the darkness, only opening further when you notice Steve lying frozen on his back, shaking hard enough for you to feel the mattress tremor.   
  
“Shit,” you say, reaching forward with a floppy hand, making contact with what must be his chest. He’s radiating heat. A feverish heat, at that. “Steve. ‘S okay.”   
  
He seizes your hand like a lifeline. If he wasn’t awake before, then he is now. It’s the left, so you don’t feel it when he squeezes it. You only see it. “Sorry,” he gasps out. “God, I’m—”   
  
“Shut up,” you mutter, not unkindly, reaching further over him. “Just come closer.”

Steve feels too pliant, too easy to maneuver, and he moves like you’ve dragged him rather than nudged him closer, his body taut like a rubberband, breath quick and shuddering. He clutches you again, hand flying to your flank, fingers twisting in your shirt.

It was a nightmare, it had to be. Of course, Steve has darkness lurking in the corners of his mind, too. It would be strange if he didn’t, but the way he’s holding on, the way he’s shivering like he’s cold…

A memory, then.

His face is inches from yours, but his eyes are shut, like he’s getting lost in it all over again, hold on you tightening until you have to ask, “Where are you, Rogers?”   
  
That gets his attention, eyes opening just enough to swivel over you frantically. “I’m here,” he breathes out, but it doesn’t sound confident. “I’m fine. I mean it.”   
  
If he was fine, he wouldn’t be clinging onto you like you were about to turn to smoke. You wouldn’t be tangling your bodies together, getting as close as possible without crawling inside of him.   


“Sure,” you say. “Just stay close for a while.”   
  
Whether you realized it or not, your hand has begun to run between his shoulders, over the bumps of his spine. You can feel his heart pounding in his back, muscles tensing further in their attempts to unwind, trying to catch up with his breathing.

“Yeah. Yeah, you too,” Steve mutters, and somehow it surprises you.

Steve doesn’t ask for anything. You know this in the deepest parts of you. He doesn’t ask for anything, just takes what he’s offered.   
  
_ So give him more _ , a voice in the back of your head says.   


It’s not lying to him, not letting him believe what he needed to believe like the night in the shower, it’s letting yourself do what you know needs to be done, what you know you can offer him—more of yourself, whoever that is.

All you can do is nod, fingers sliding up into his hair. His skin is a bit slick under the metal of your palm, meaning the strands are no different.   


He won’t tell you what he dreamt of, and you don’t want to know. You have a feeling you know the answer, anyway. It lies in the closeness of him, in the way he clutched your hand before anything else.

You try not to close your eyes just yet, or to think Steve’s breath puffing against your ear feels like gusts of wind. Your feet aren’t cold and there is no screech of metal, no sensation in the fingers of your left hand urging you to reach out for someone you can’t see.

You won’t allow yourself to fall down that hole. Not now. Not when you need to focus. All you have is your voice and your hands, but maybe that’s all you need. Your hands can be repurposed but there’s only one language that hasn’t been sharpened, blackened by cruelty and pain you can use, just as you did for Yelena on that silent, cold night.

“ Jal tê sovel,” you tell him, and it feels so right on your tongue. Righter than English, than Russian, than any language drilled into your head. “Come on, Rogers.”   
  
Steve pulls back, bewilderment crossing over his face. If he knew you, really knew you, then he recognizes Romanes. Probably has an ear for it, even if he can’t speak a lick of it, even if he can’t understand you now.

“I didn’t think you remembered,” is all he says.

No one knew the truth, and that truth died with Zola, meaning there was one part of you that eventually escaped conditioning, sequestered away in some part of your mind the rest of HYDRA couldn’t get to. 

Maybe that’s what saved you in the end. Enough of your identity was hidden there, too, enough for you to feel less like a thing and more like flesh and blood, a person with eyes and teeth, a beating heart that belonged to people, places, you couldn’t recall until you were free from your handlers.

Aside from Steve, it’s all that remains of the life you lost.

“I remember now,” you say, just loud enough to be heard

It doesn’t seem to reassure him. His eyes flicker over you like he’s seeing you for the first time, face growing graver and graver by the moment. He brings his hand up over the side of your face and doesn’t pull away, fingers set at your hairline.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t fast enough,” he chokes out. “I’m sorry you couldn’t go home.”

It twists your guts into knots, the weight of his words. They make you want to be bitter with the knowledge that he didn’t catch you, but it was an impossible feat, even for him. He couldn’t have reached out for you without falling in the process.

You knew that then, too, you think. You knew you couldn’t take him with you, but he tried to follow you anyway, plunging himself into the sea soon after. It would have been kinder if neither of you made it.

There are so many answers you can give him, so many reassurances.  _ I’m here now _ and  _ it wasn’t your fault _ , but he’ll only fight you on it. Survivor’s guilt never quite goes away, and you might have been familiar with it once. Ssaw too much death, too many men that were more kids than anything else meeting their maker from a grenade or a bullet knee deep in mud or a foxhole in the sand.   
  
If the surreal parts of your lives were stripped away, your story would be no different from a million others. Everyone lost a son, a friend, a lover, a brother, a father. According to history, you’re piled in with the rest of the dead. You probably have a grave, or your name engraved into a stone with the names of the fallen somewhere. Steve was, too, and they had to erase it all.

Will that ever happen for you? Will you have your life handed back to you, have your grave taken away? You aren’t sure you want that.

“Plenty of guys didn’t get to go home,” you mutter. “We’re no different from them.”

Steve is watching you, giving you a look that you can’t quite place. You’re not absolving him of his guilt, because he has to do that himself. You’re not blaming him for something neither of you could control. You’re simply telling the truth. That was the war.

You feel his fingers slide through your hair, strands caught between them as his hand moves slowly toward your shoulder. The tangles pull and tug before they release. It’s no more than a year or two of growth, and unkempt growth at that. 

The deterioration of your appearance grew more prominent through the last decade. You were not useful unless you were killing, unless you were doing the bidding of your handlers. Nothing else mattered, least of all what you look like.

You can take that control back now. You can shave your head or grow your hair as long as you can bear and do the same with your beard. Your body is yours for once and you intend to prove that fact in any way you can.

Steve’s touches are gentle, gentler than you deserve, You feel off-kilter with it, like the mattress is being pulled from under your body. This feels rawer, more intimate than being naked and letting him see all of you, letting him touch as he pleased.

There’s nothing either of you can say. Nothing that could possibly help. All you can do is follow the instinct to bring him closer, and you’re surprised when he lets you, breathing out when you bring both arms all the way around him. You don’t question it. You don’t allow yourself to. This feels right. This feels like the only sensible thing.

You’re a pair of crooked parentheses. Your nose is pressed into Steve’s hairline, his temple rests against your jaw. His hand is splayed on your hip, and from where your shirt has been pulled up, the warmth of his skin bleeds into yours. You aren’t sure where your legs are, lost in the tangle with his. The bed feels rickety and small. It feels like you have no choice but to lie this close.

To someone who’s long dead, it might feel like a bitter Brooklyn winter. Like one of those grueling nights when the radiator isn’t quite working, like Steve’s got a rattle in his lungs and you’re making a last-ditch effort to keep it from getting any worse, stave off the cold as much as you can, even though you yourself are shivering through your two pairs of socks.

It’s enough.

The moment Steve’s breathing evens out, the moment you’re sure he’s asleep, you tumble back into it, too, comforted by the heat bleeding into the core of you.

-

You wake up in the same position, but the only difference is that your forehead is pressed to Steve’s collarbone. You think you must have been dreaming a moment ago because you feel disoriented, expecting to hear neighbors stomping around or to smell the yeasty warmth of bagels wafting from a bakery around the corner. 

_The bakery you worked at,_ where you spent hours kneading dough and mopping floors and picking flour out from under your nails, relieved to be somewhere warm for a while.

In this moment, remembering doesn’t feel impossible. It might be one of your only memories untainted by grief.

There must be more. There has to be more.

-

Eventually, you force yourself to untangle yourself from Steve. You wash your face. You brush your teeth until you taste toothpaste in the back of your throat. You brush the snarling tangles out of your hair. A daily maintenance, a sense of routine and control you didn’t have before.

You boil a pot of coffee and drink it despite the raw emptiness of your stomach, just because it feels like the right thing to do. This was a part of Barnes’ life, too, and you might be able to accomplish this small feat in your attempts to feel less like a hollow piece of machinery.

Steve shows up in the kitchen as you drain your third mug. He still has shadowy dark circles, but his eyes aren’t dull. He’s clear and alert. He doesn’t look so frayed at the edges. You aren’t sure how you appear to him, but you feel better. Less like you’re free falling.

“Look, about last night,” Steve begins.

You shake your head. “Don’t gotta talk about it,” you say.   
  
“I know,” Steve argues. “I just don’t want to keep putting you on the spot. I know you...I know there’s more you’re trying to sort out right now.”   
  
You stare at him as you take a long, slow drink from your mug. “You’re stuck here dealing with my shit,” you say simply. “Not fair if I don’t help you with yours. Quid pro quo, Rogers.”

It’s not exactly a lie, but it’s not the truth. The urge to stick close, to find some way to help him is deeper than that, and you both know it. You can see in Steve’s face that he’s reading between the lines, and you’re grateful for it, grateful he recognizes your cues and that you’re learning to do the same with his.

He only nods, and thankfully, that’s it. For now, at least.

“Can I at least try to make it up to you?” Steve asks.

Your brows knit together, and then your eyes flicker down. He’s at half-mast. Not uncommon for mornings, but a hot thrill still rushes through your blood, brain suddenly far more functional than before.

“You can try,” you say, leaning back against the edge of the counter. He’s already coming closer. “Don’t slack on me, Rogers.”   
  
That has a faint smile pulling at his mouth. “I don’t slack,” he shoots back.

Before you can say anything else, he drops to his knees.

-

You go over the edge with a half-strangled cry, low in your chest, and Steve never moves away, holding you in the heat of his mouth and sucking you through the aftershocks until your knees begin to buckle, palm digging so deeply into the counter top it almost hurts.

When he looks up at you, his eyes are dark and his lips are wet, gone a dark, bruised pink. “Better?” he asks, hoarse.

A laugh punches out of your chest, caught in a gasp as you attempt to catch your breath. Your left hand cards through his hair and he shivers when you tug it, just enough to be felt.   
  
His breath fans over your inner thigh, head resting against your hip. You aren’t sure how long you stay that way, but you can’t bring yourself to care. You’re too lost in the slow warmth enveloping your body, making it come alive, thawing ever so slowly.

You’re finding yourself craving more, wanting to go further and faster, but you remind yourself that you have the time to make sense of it all, to figure out what you want.

When you switch positions and you experimentally sink a finger into him while you swallow the length of him down, it wrings a sound from him that has you ready to go all over again, has another dark thread of want pulling you taut as you probe deeper. It has Steve going tense, coming faster than you expect. You barely taste it, and you attempt to guide him through it in the same way he did it for you, until he’s soft against your tongue.

He looks shocky and unbalanced when you pull away, when your hands come to his hips as you haul yourself up. When he leans in, you can taste yourself on his mouth, and you wonder if he’s experiencing the same thing. 

It’s almost enough to make you hungry all over again. 

-

“It stopped raining,” Steve says later, long after you’ve both dressed and cleaned up. “So, I was thinking about going for a walk, getting my bearings.”

He’s inviting you without inviting you, watching you expectantly, waiting for your answer.

Somehow, this is difficult. Talking to Steve when you have your thoughts together makes your skin crawl, but you force yourself to remember that you don’t have to say anything unless you want to.

It’s tempting to reject his offer, but you aren’t sure you can.

You don’t look up from your notes—scrawling the down HYDRA’s Midwest bases, safehouses and the like—when you say, “You’re supposed to be in hiding.”

“Nat wouldn’t have brought us out here if it wasn’t safe,” Steve argues. “I’ll be fine.”   
  
“Not taking any risks, Rogers, I have a better idea anyway,” you tell him. “Relay all of this to her and Sam so we can start solving this.”

That gets his attention, has him coming closer to look at everything you’ve been writing. His hand rests on the back of your chair, and you can feel the heat of him, even like this.   
  
“This is…” Steve starts, shakes his head. “This is the entire US branch.”   
  
“That should be all of them,” you answer. “Still got Canada and Mexico to cover, but that won’t take long, and once the bases get ripped apart, you’ll find them faster than I can.”

Steve works his jaw, eyes scanning over the pages before he slides into the seat opposite yours.

“So, what happens then?” Steve asks. “We let the alphabet agencies crack in on it from tips and by working with SHIELD just to be thorough, let them take the credit for it, I understand that, but what happens to you?”   


You’ve tried very hard not to think about that yourself, but you suppose there’s a time and a place for everything.

You cross your arms on the tabletop, eyes on your uniform handwriting before you look up at Steve. “I don’t know,” you say. “Anyone with the security clearance to see my face is dead, and if some aren’t, they will be. I’m not above getting my hands dirty, but if I find a way to get out for good, I’m gonna take it.”

Steve nods, and for a long moment, he says nothing at all. He only watches you with an unreadable expression.

“Even if we didn’t know each other,” Steve begins. “Even if I had no idea who you were until you saved me, I would still want to help you. You’ve...Bucky, you’ve done more than we could have asked for and we all owe you. The least we could do is get you out of the country, help you start a new life somewhere, and keep any eyes off of you.”   
  
It all feels far too easy. Give locations and names away, and get protection, get becoming invisible in return. You keep waiting for a catch, but you think…

You think you can trust him. You can trust Sam and Natalia, trust them to hold up their ends of the bargain.

“It can’t be tomorrow,” you say. “Once the op starts, whenever that is, that’s when I’m in the wind.”

“We can still move you somewhere else,” Steve offers. “Another city, someplace that isn’t affiliated with SHIELD”

You look around—at the outdated wooden cabinets and walls, the ratty couch and chipped paint, the scratched floors, and then you shake your head. “This works,” you say. “I’m getting my bearings.”

The smile he gives you is unexpected, cutting through the persistent gloomy light coming through the curtains, cutting through the gloom choking the breath out of you.   
  
-   


You don’t feel any different. That persistent hollowness refuses to budge, rooted in the core of you, but you’re able to ignore it for now, even with the sneaking suspicion that something isn’t right.   
  
Steve doesn’t seem to notice, but you can feel it in the air, taste it in the back of your throat. You’re letting your guard down, and you can’t allow that to happen now that you’ve caught it. Something about the unchanging weather and the soft clothes on your skin, vaguely smelling of soap, is beginning to cloud your judgement.

You go through the motions of the day, but find there’s no need for you to keep up appearances since Steve is mainly preoccupied, relaying all the information you’ve given him, and he looks drawn by the end of it.

When he finally goes upstairs for the night, you don’t follow him. You hope he doesn’t pay your absence any mind, that he’ll grow impatient and drift off soon enough.

After a while, his footsteps cease, and you can pull your attention away from him. You sit on the sofa and write name after name, location after location down until your pen runs out of ink and you have to switch to a new one, until the notebook is all but filled. You rip out your personal entries and stuff them into the book you abandoned the day Steve told you the truth about your family.

You scan your eyes over the title— _ War of the Worlds _ . 

Have you read it before? You should ask Steve if you have, if he remembers. You should ask him where your mother and sister are buried. 

Maybe your grave is there, too. What was buried? Belongings you had left behind? Clothes?

Wondering is all you have, anyway, because the answers have been lost to time.

-

The clock ticks on, the hours slipping by. Your vision is beginning to blur. Your thoughts are drifting in the strangest way, stretching and twisting incoherently. You catch yourself mumbling something, voice rumbling in your throat.

It’s pointless trying to figure out what it was you dreamt of, if it was good or bad. All you can do now is finish this page, just a few more names you have no trouble wracking your brain for. It doesn’t matter if they’re dead or alive. Pull on the right thread and everything has the potential to start crashing down.

North America is almost completely covered. Two more strongholds, one in Saskatchewan and another in Toronto. You have the locations, all you have to do is write them down. Your handlers will be so pleased to—

You shake the fog away from your thoughts. Recalibrate. You’re in West Virginia, in a safehouse hidden from the rest of the world. There are no masters here, no conditioning. Your memories are returning with a clarity you’ve never experienced. You’re no longer on the wrong side. You’re the only one capable of collapsing HYDRA in on itself if you give the right information away.

That makes more sense. The tension partially recedes from your body. You shut your eyes to get your bearings, and…

...open them to find it’s morning.

You jolt upward, finding that at some point you shifted to lie down. When you run your hand over your face, you feel creases embedded into your skin. Your notes are on the coffee table, still opened, but finished from what you can tell.

At least you managed to do that.

Before you can think of the fact that there’s still so much to cover, a mug is set in front of you, and the couch dips as Steve sits down.

“I had to finish it,” you say before Steve can ask any questions, running a hand through your tangled hair. You feel like your throat has been rubbed raw with sandpaper. “That’s North America covered, but there’s still the rest of the damn world to get to.”   
  
Steve stares at you warily before he picks the book up, eyes scanning over the pages before he turns to the next section, lips moving silently as his brows knit together.

“You did all of this last night?” he asks quietly, half-thrilled, half-exasperated. “This is...I don’t even know what to say”   
  
“I had to finish it,” you repeat. “It’s all I have against them right now.”   
  
That wariness doesn’t budge, embedding deeper into Steve’s expression as he flickers his gaze all over you. You must look worn thin.  _ You look like death warmed over, pal,  _ some smug little voice whispers.  _ Gee, thanks. _

“Thank you,” Steve gets out eventually, almost mechanically. “This is more than we could have ever asked you for.”

All you can do is nod, hands clasped together between your knees. Your head feels like it weighs a ton, thoughts slow and murky.   
  
“You know, it’s funny,” Steve continues. “I think it’s too much intel. Someone’s gonna figure out we have a source pretty quick if we give the whole list up.”   
  
“If SHIELD kept you in the dark for this long,” you say, meeting his eyes. “Only fair you do the same right back. List ain’t for them, anyway.”   
  
There’s a short pause, and then Steve is resting the book in the empty space between you. “We owe you, Buck,” he says. “We owe you everything for this.”   


You aren’t even sure of what you’d want when the time comes. Freedom? Acquittal? The ability to disappear for good? The last thing you want is to be under surveillance, no matter who’s keeping an eye on you.   
  
Maybe you just want a chance to stop looking over your shoulder. That shouldn’t be too much to ask for.

-

Your stubble is quickly turning to a beard.

You notice this in the bathroom, notice how the only scars you have look extremely old. There’s one that leaves a gap in your beard, on the side of your jaw. You aren’t sure where it came from, if it was before the war or during it. Maybe it was something mundane, cutting yourself shaving or slipping drunkenly on an icy street.

It would be a nice change, if there was an anticlimactic ending to any story in your life.

-

When you come back downstairs, the smell of food hits you like a blow to the head. Your stomach twinges painfully. You regret not eating anything yesterday.

“It’s late, figured we’d just move to lunch,” Steve says, and it’s another pot of canned chili and instant potatoes. “You hungry?”

You can’t be picky about food, especially if you never were before. You recall eating whatever was available to you, no matter how much you hated it. Your ma had a good hand and she ended up passing that to you, you think. Taught you how to make food on its way out taste good, even taught you how to make bad, cheap cuts of meat tastes good, taught you to make use of everything you can. 

_ Food is food, waste is waste, _ you think to yourself. No one ever told you that before, so it must be something you came up with on your own. A phrase you couldn’t quite let go of.

You eat in silence with him, barely glancing up from your food. It doesn’t taste any better, but it’s less of a hindrance now. There’s something very familiar, visceral, about this moment in particular. Maybe a winter when the heat was working, when Steve hadn’t gotten sick as a dog, and you were both making decent money. There had to be moments where you weren’t worrying, even if it was only for a little while.   
  
It’s getting far too easy to slip into memories like this, but you aren’t sure you mind it.

-

You don’t touch him, not yet, but you allow yourself to look. At the broad line of his shoulders, the slope of his lower back, his long fingers. His neck is nice to look at, too, all smooth, unblemished skin. Looking at it makes you swallow instinctively, all too aware of the faded scar near your jugular, visible only to you. It takes enormous effort not to touch it.

Even as much as Steve has exposed himself to you, you want to see more. You want to feel more. You want to get to know him and understand exactly what you’re dealing with in every way you can. 

Later in the afternoon, when he goes to stand out on the patio, arms crossed over the railing as he looks over the woods, you surprise yourself by following him. The air is cold for April, but the weak sun is warm against your skin. The breeze rushes by, carrying something piney and floral. It’s a good smell. You breathe it all in, hold it in your lungs, and become aware of Steve watching you as you exhale.

“You know, it’s not bad out here,” he says. His hair looks lighter out here, the sun hitting him in a way that turns it almost white around the edges, eyes lighter than usual, but you can’t drag your eyes away. He thrives in the sun. “Think I’m getting used to it.”

You aren’t sure what to make of that, aren’t sure how you’re meant to interpret it other than him offering something to you, offering whatever this is, these endless afternoons secluded away from the rest of the world. 

Here, it’s easy to believe you’ve been forgotten, crushed in the rubble of the Triskelion or rotting at the bottom of the Potomac River. You open your mouth to speak, to say—

It’s as though whoever or whatever has been watching this unfold has decided to pull the plug, because you hear the unmistakable sound of wheels crunching against dirt, getting closer and closer, headed toward the cabin.

Steve glances at you, alarm steadily etching into his expression. You try harder to listen, to make sure you’re right.   
  
“Doesn’t sound like a truck,” you tell him, still watching the world ahead warily, listening for any indication of something strange. “Doesn’t sound like more than one car.”   
  
“You sure it’s a car?” Steve asks.

You nod. It’s too quiet, too smooth. It shouldn’t make your brain come alive again, but no one has been this way in days. There have been no messages, no plans to meet, and evidently, none Steve knows about.

A dated, screeching silver four-door creeps up the driveway, and even with the sun in your eyes, you recognize Natalia sitting in the driver’s seat. She parks and gets out of the car, calm as ever. Her hair is open, she’s dressed as nondescript as possible, but she’s let her facade fall now, evidently, irritation written all over her face.

“I thought she was in New York,” you say, catching her gaze as she heads for the stairs.

“So did I,” Steve says, sounding as bewildered as you feel. All you can hear is the rustle of leaves, Natalia’s boots clunking up the stairs, and the sudden rush of blood in your ears.   
  
Something isn’t right.

“Basement,” Natalia says sharply, making a beeline for the door. “Now.”

She tugs it open, not waiting for either of you, but it seems that there’s no choice but to follow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jal tê sovel = Go to sleep
> 
> also...uh oh


	14. Chapter 14

The living room is all shadows as your eyes adjust. Natalia is a blur, already in the hall and wrenching the door to the basement open. Neither you or Steve say a word, just trailing her down the rickety stairs. 

Steve shuts the door. It smells damp down here, like washing powder and cold air. “Nat,” he begins warily, before you can even wonder what to ask. “What the hell is going on?”

Natalia is leaning against the washing machine, fingers drumming against the side of it. “First of all, I’m here as a messenger,” she begins, slow and measured, eyes trailing toward you, then back to Steve. “Second of all, we’re on the same side, so don’t think I’m here to play games. I switched cars on my way here in case anyone was watching, said I was headed to Raleigh and came here.”   
  
You don’t know what to think, don’t know what to say. From the corner of your eye, Steve is rigid, tense all over.   
  
Once again, Natalia’s eyes are on you. “Your intel was good, James, but that’s the problem,” she says. “It was too good. Fury got a clue it was you feeding it to us when nine out of twelve bases had a cryo tank and a room for reprogramming. Said it wouldn’t be surprising if all that info was stored in your head in the off-chance an op went wrong and you had to find the base without an escort. They were the most lucrative and had the most intel, but there was definitely a pattern.”

There’s a long, long moment where none of you move, each waiting for the other to respond.

Natalia beats you and Steve to it, continuing where she left off.

“It’s only HYDRA and the alphabet agencies that think The Winter Soldier went down in the Triskelion,” she says before turning to Steve. “Do you really think Fury believed you got pulled out of the river by just anyone, or that you swam out? You think he believed that Sam and I just happened to realize you were being dosed with something that slowed your healing down? Or found the file on Moros? We couldn’t have found it unless we were looking for it or unless we were tipped off about it, and it’s not like we had a mole in HYDRA because we didn’t know they were active until about a week ago. Fury’s not a fan of coincidences and he’s not an idiot, Steve. We were never going to keep this a secret for good. It was only a matter of time.”

“She’s right,” you say, and it’s rougher than you want it to be. You swallow as they both turn to face you. “You’re right. All that intel, it was only a matter of time.”   


“And that was only the backstory,” Natalia says, crossing her arms over her chest. “Point is, Nick wants to have this conversation with you himself. He wants to make a deal.”

“Natasha,” Steve begins.   
  
“Save your argument for later,” Natalia cuts in. “Nick’s terms are you can avoid prison time, avoid the feds, avoid being thrown in a psych facility, if you come work for SHIELD. You’ll clean up HYDRA’s messes, point out more bases and show them the weak spots. You’d get a new identity, squeaky clean file, someplace to live, and do most of your ops with us.”   
  
“Us,” you echo. “Meaning the Avengers.”   
  
“Meaning the Avengers,” Natalia repeats. “From what the few files about you show, it’s obvious you weren’t working on your own volition, but you’re still one hell of a sniper. I’ve done some digging and found the file on it.  _ Your _ file, not HYDRA’s. It’s impressive, Nick might not be director anymore, but his word is still law. This info hasn’t gotten to SHIELD yet, but if you agree, it will, and that’s not all he wanted me to tell you. He’s not interested in contracting The Winter Soldier. He’s contracting James Barnes.”

“And interested in keeping an eye on him, same as SHIELD did to me,” Steve says irritably, voice raising with every word. “He’s making it sound like a deal worth going for and it  _ won’t _ be. It’s—” he huffs, suddenly looking like he’s about to jump out of his skin. “They’re two sides of the same coin, Nat. There’s always an agenda, always an ulterior motive. Sure, Nick said that, but if SHIELD gets their hands in this, they’re gonna want more and more and hell, how do we know  _ they’re _ not gonna think of him as disposable? Or someone they can send into riskier territory ‘cause of his history? Where does that—are we gonna end up being surveillance? Government sanctioned handlers? ‘Cause that’s not gonna happen.”

He turns to you, something like regret in the bottom of his eyes when he says, “That’s not gonna happen. It’s all you from here on out. It’s all up to you.”   
  
You feel stretched thin, hovering outside of your own body, unsure of what to think, unsure of everything. Steve is watching you expectantly, Natalia is watching him, poised in case he wants to argue, in case he goes against whatever script is unfolding in her head.

You meet Steve’s eyes for only a moment before you face Natalia. 

“He’s right,” Natalia says. “Forget what Steve wants, forget what Sam and I want, forget Fury, forget SHIELD. What’s  _ your _ answer, Barnes?”

What  _ is _ your answer?

You can’t fathom being under the thumb of anyone again, even with the carefully crafted illusion of freedom. You’ll be given somewhere to live, and it will surely be bugged. You’ll be tracked. You’ll be followed. It’s living the rest of your life on a very, very long leash rather than the short one you’ve been on for decades.

The conditioning relentlessly drilled into your head...there’s so much of it you still don’t quite have a grasp on. What you know is only the tip of the iceberg and if it’s set off during an op, if you’re triggered by anything—a place, a phrase, a sound, a smell—how can you be sure you won’t be dealt with like a threat? Like The Soldier? They won’t trust Steve to monitor you, because he’ll find ways to clean up any hint of a mess and they’d know it. Where does that leave him? Where does that leave you?

You’ll be another asset, another lapdog. Only this time, it will be for SHIELD. This time, they’ll clean you up and give you a name. Stick you in some bugged apartment and claim you’re free to do as you please.

Just thinking about it makes your blood run cold.

You open your mouth to say  _ no deal, _ to speak before anyone has a chance to speak for you, but Natalia beats you to it.

“Give us a minute, Steve,” she says, and for a moment, you think she’s talking to you. You think she’s asking you to leave, but that’s when Steve’s gaze flickers between you and Natalia, expression raw and more open than before. He goes from confused, to irritated, to crestfallen, all in the matter of a second.   
  
“Sure,” he says quietly, hesitantly. “Yeah, I’ll be upstairs.”   
  
It takes a moment for him to leave, and he lingers on the stairs, footsteps slow and heavy. You watch Natalia as she watches him, eyes following him even as the door creaks shut.

A sudden silence washes over the room, a deeper sense of discomfort that wasn’t there before. “He’ll still hear everything you’re saying,” you tell her, tapping your ear. “Enhanced hearing.”

Natalia steps closer, until there’s only a bit of space between the two of you. “True,” she says. “But he won’t be able to understand us.”   
  
Her switch to Russian is so sudden, you almost think she’s still speaking English. You lean against a wooden beam, fingers laced together behind your back. “I don’t know what the right choice is,” you say, the words feeling disjointed and strange in your mouth for a moment. “If I stay, I’ll be under permanent watch. If I run, they’ll follow me.”

“They’ll follow someone who isn’t careful,” Natalia says slowly, crossing her arms over her chest. “You’re careful when you’re allowed to be.”

“You remember that better than I do,” you say. “I’ve tried to run on my own before, Natalia. It didn’t work.”   
  
“Because they planned for that,” Natalia says. “Believe me, I know. Try to run once and they make sure you never get far when you try to run again. I only ran because I got lucky. It wasn’t a plan, it was survival.”

It makes you feel sick. You aren’t sure how long the Red Room lasted after your exit, but it must have been long enough. Long enough to recruit more, to condition more, to further scar the girls they already had hold of. You try not to wonder what happened to the others. You resist the urge to ask.

“Now listen and listen close,” Natalia continues, suddenly firm. “I never told them where you were, and it’s going to stay that way. Fury doesn’t know you’re anywhere near Steve. I was supposed to come to you, then to him, but trust me when I say I’m using his trust as an advantage. If you still want to disappear, I can make it happen. All I have to do is step up and say I’ll look for you. I’ll say you’re in the wind after a while, do a few more check-ins, and find a way to get you on the backburner in case SHIELD comes into the picture, to let me handle any leads that come through. It’s not a manhunt. No one’s going to plaster your face everywhere because the rest of the world thinks you’re dead and it’s going to stay that way. Whatever happens, HYDRA and the other agencies can’t know you’re alive.”

“If that’s true,” you begin. Your jaw is clenched so hard your teeth ache. “Then let me stay here.”   
  
Natalia looks far too pitying when she says, “I would if I could.”

You try your best to digest it all, to listen past the blood running through your ears. Natalia’s eyes are burning a hole through you, waiting for a response you don’t know how to give.

But still, you’d rather run for the rest of your life than ever be caught again.

“I’m not worth the risk,” you say, hoarse. “We both know I’m not.”

Her brows knit together and she takes another step closer. “You thought I was,” she says. “You thought the other girls were.”   
  
Your eyes fall shut as you shake your head, let it fall back against the beam. “That’s not the same,” you mutter. “You were a child, and you had a  _ chance. _ I’m—”

“It doesn’t  _ matter,” _ Natalia cuts in. “Whether or not you think you’re worth saving. It’s about whether you want to save yourself or not.”   
  
You force yourself to breathe, in and out, in and out. “I would have thought you’d have more trust in Fury,” you say.

“I do trust him,” Natalia clarifies. “But I don’t trust SHIELD as it stands now. Not with you.”   
  
Your laugh is cold and humorless. “Because I’m a ticking time bomb,” you say. “It’s the truth. We both know it.”   
  
“I think you’ve already been defused,” Natalia says. “I think you defused yourself when you pulled Steve out of the Potomac.”

You want, deeply, to argue. You want to ask her why she’s so sure. Why she, Sam, and Steve are so sure. You want to shake her and ask if she’s forgotten that you’re the one who helped mold her into what the Red Room wanted, that you failed to end it so many times, but you don’t voice it. You swallow it all down and open your eyes.

She’s still watching you, waiting for your answer.   
  
“Will it be better,” you begin, swallow hard. “For him. If I leave.”

The words hang heavy in the air, only thickening the silence that suddenly falls between the two of you. Natalia’s mouth has flattened into a tight, bloodless line.

“It’ll be better because it confirms he had no involvement in this,” she answers. “As far as anyone knows, there’s a few hundred miles and no contact between you. If we hammer that in with you disappearing without a trace, it takes all suspicion off of him. He can go back to doing what he was doing before if that’s what he wants.”   
  
“And if he finds a way to follow me—”   
  
“You’ll both be on the run, truly on the run, for the rest of your lives.”   


“I already made him swear to stay put if I left, but he’s not going to listen to me,” you say. “Whole world will think he’s a hostage, and then SHIELD will actually want me dead.”   
  
Natalia doesn’t speak, and you take it as a cue to continue.   
  
“There’s no other option,” you say. “If I agree and I stay, something’s bound to go wrong. If I stay, he’s only going to...he’s expecting me to be the guy he lost and I can’t be him. I want to be, but I can’t. I can’t be Barnes, I can’t be the Soldier, and that’s what SHIELD will want, no matter what anyone says.”

Your heart is pounding hard, throat dry and clenched tight. You push from your position and curl the fingers of your right hand around Natalia’s bicep. “So,  _ help me _ , Natalia,” you say to her,  _ beg _ her. “Help me walk away without getting blood on my hands.”

You expect to be pushed away, for her to wrench her arm out of your grip, but she doesn’t do any of that.

She simply stays where she is, assessing you, surely confirming that you aren’t saying this impulsively, despite that being partly the case. She’s satisfied enough, evidently, because her expression sharpens in measures, slowly but surely.

“Listen close, because I’m not going to repeat myself,” she says, so low you barely hear it. “After midnight, walk down the driveway and keep going past the house. Follow the signs until you find a gas station. The first one you see. I’ll be easy to spot and I’ll be waiting, but but if you’re not there by at least four in the morning, I’m assuming you changed your mind and that you’re taking Fury’s deal.”   
  
“I’m not taking his deal,” you say firmly. “I’ve made up my mind.”

“If that’s true, then you have to find a way out before Steve figures out what you’re doing,” Natalia says. “You know he won’t go down without a fight. If this is going to work, he can’t know a thing. I know you don’t want to hurt him anymore than you have to, and I know what I made you promise, but I don’t think any of us saw this coming this soon. So, if this is what we’re doing, we have to stick to the plan.”   
  
You can do that. You can do what’s necessary, no matter the outcome. That’s exactly what you were trained for.   
  
So, you nod.

It’s all you’re capable of.

Natalia puts her thumb and forefinger between her lips before she whistles, high-pitched and sharp. “He’ll definitely hear that,” she says, never averting her gaze. “From here on out, follow my lead.”   
  
There’s a long moment where nothing happens, but soon enough, the sound of footsteps grows progressively louder. You wonder if Steve attempted to listen in, if he tried to piece any of your conversation together since you had done the same to him, breached his privacy when he bared himself to Natalia.

The door creaks open, slow and high-pitched. You can see Steve lingering briefly at the top of the wooden staircase, not quite looking at you. He drums his fingers on the handrail once, twice, before he starts his slow trek down the stairs.

“So, what did I miss?” he asks.

Natalia shakes her head. “Just needed to discuss a few things in private,” she says.

There’s a pause before you say, “I’m gonna think it over tonight.”   
  
“And tonight’s all I can give either of you anyway,” Natalia says. “Nick wants to meet the day after tomorrow. So, put your heads together and make a plan.”

Steve opens his mouth to speak, then closes it, hands clenching at his sides before he forces his posture into something like resignation. “It’s up to you,” he says, catching your gaze. “If you want to come in, you can, but it should be on your terms. No one else’s.”   


You say nothing. You feel like he can see straight through you, see the way you’re lying to his face.

Steve sighs, short and impatient. “I should talk to Nick,” he says, rubs his fingers over his eyes. “This isn’t—”

“Steve.” Natalia’s tone is abrupt and sharp. “My cover’s hanging by a thread. Fury doesn’t know you know about this yet. Let’s keep it that way.”

She’s already zipping her jacket up again briskly, preparing to leave. “Like I said, I’m here as a messenger,” she continues, turning to you. “So, Barnes, whatever your choice is, I need an answer by tomorrow.”

The offer isn’t going anywhere. You still have a chance to think it over, regardless of what you choose.

“I can do that,” is all you tell her, but it seems to be enough.

“Play nice when the time comes to lay everything out on the table,” Natalia says to Steve. “If this is going to happen, we need you.”   
  
Steve’s expression is shifting endlessly all over again, trying and failing not to twist into something like frustration. “I’m following his lead,” he says. “That’s all I can say.”

_ They’ll watch him, too, _ you think. They’ll make him think he’s on your side without their knowledge, keeping things from them while they keep an eye on every single move either of you make. You can’t imagine SHIELD keeping you a secret for too long. Someone is bound to find out about you, find out your history, and will want to use it to their advantage. It’s only a matter of time, regardless of what Natalia said.

“That’s new,” you say, stiff. “Maybe you’re coming down with something.”   
  
The smile he gives you is faint, reserved for no one else, and it makes you feel sick all over again.

-

It isn’t long before Natalia is leaving as swiftly as she came, presumably to continue her farce of being the messenger. The sun hides behind a thick cover of white clouds, the air bitingly cold. Snow wouldn’t be surprising. You watch Steve walk her out, saying something you can just faintly hear the echoes of. Their backs are turned, posture giving nothing away even as Natalia slides into the driver’s seat.

When she pulls away, Steve remains rooted to the spot and watches her go.

-

Time trickles by in a way that feels both too slow and too fast. You and Steve seem to repel one another, moving in circles as you unconsciously avoid the inevitable conversation you’re sure to have.

The sun is beginning to set once you finally decide to face him.

When you come upstairs, stepping across the hall, you see Steve is in the bedroom he previously used. You linger in the doorway, peeking through the half-opened door. Inside, the air is strangely still, not a single thing disturbed since he last slept in it. His back is turned to you, shoulders hunched and posture wound tight, like he’s been waiting for you. 

“What are you thinking?” Steve asks quietly, not turning around.

You find your left hand clenching at your side, the right curling around the door jamb. The more you stare, the more you want to touch. The more you want to touch, the less you want to think about leaving in mere hours from now.

Something tells you you’ve been here before. Holding your breath, wasting time. You can feel this in your blood, feel that you’re about to repeat a moment you’ve already lived through.

“I don’t know,” you say, and it’s the closest thing to the truth you can manage. “But I still have time.”   
  
Steve nods, posture tensing even more. “Yeah,” he says, so quietly you barely hear it. “Wish there was more than what you got.”   
  
You swallow hard and breathe out, as slow as you can. “What if I agreed,” you begin. “To Fury’s deal.”   
  
That’s enough for Steve to turn around, brows knitting together. He flattens his lips into a tight line, eyes flitting between you and somewhere near your feet. “Whatever you choose to do,” Steve says. “Don’t do it because you’re backed into a corner. Don’t let that happen.”   
  
You hum. “Not an easy feat,” you say. “I’ve been backed into a corner for a while now. It’s either give myself up or eventually get detained.”

The icy panic that creeps its way into your guts, into the base of your spine, is all-consuming. All you can think about are grey little rooms and being asked endless questions, being under harsh lights with cold steel under your back, samples of whatever you can possibly give, the whir of an MRI machine pulsing in time with your heart, examinations of your arm, flashlights in your eyes. 

Surely, there will be a cell, but SHIELD will stick you in a house or an apartment and insist that’s not what it is at all, just like they did with Steve. They’ll want to observe you, understand you. They’ll see if there’s any chance of you defecting before the process begins all over again, and they clear you well enough to shove a gun in your hand and send you out into the field. Standard procedure.

Nausea settles in, thick on the back of your tongue.

“Bucky,” Steve says warily, rising to his feet. What must you look like? Your head feels light. “Hey, listen, whatever you’re thinking is gonna happen, it’s—” his voice sticks in his throat, eyes too damn earnest. “We’ll find a way around it. Hell, it won’t happen at all. I’ll make sure of that.”   
  
You shake your head. “You can’t promise that,” you say. “Like hell they’ll listen to you, like hell they’ll listen to  _ me.” _

“If we show how much progress you made, that would give us more leeway,” Steve says quickly. You can tell he doesn’t quite believe it, can see the way he’s rapidly losing faith in his own words. “You’ve been away from HYDRA for ten days.  _ Ten days, _ Bucky, and look at you. How well are you going to be doing in a month? Six months? A year? If you decide to come to SHIELD on your own, they’d see that.”   
  
It goes against everything he’d said, goes against the fury he felt in the basement and all the brashness he hurled at Natalia in the name of your goddamn autonomy, meaning he  _ is _ following your lead, handing the reins over to you.

“After last week,” you say. “Anyone who smells like HYDRA’s gonna be tossed in a cell till they know what to do with them. I’m no exception.”

This seems to resonate with him, and for a moment, he says nothing. He only steps closer, body wound tight, footsteps slow and measured. “So, why don’t we leave?” he asks, like it’s the easiest question in the world.

For a moment, you find yourself unable to speak. 

“Steve,” you eventually say. “That’s not—”   
  
“I mean it,” Steve continues, more confident than before. He takes a step closer. “If you want to, we can leave tonight. Get our hands on a car or keep walking until we find a bus station. We get as far away as we can, and I promise I’ll find a way to get you out of here for good. I can find a way to get us both out.”   
  
Your heart is suddenly rattling against your ribcage.

_ What if you just— _

No. 

No, that can’t happen.

If Steve comes with you, you’ll be tracked down immediately, or seen as a bigger threat and killed before you can get at least a hundred miles away. No matter what the circumstance, he’ll be seen as a hostage, not an accomplice. It’s too risky.

It’s too tempting.

He’s standing before you, offering you another way out, a way out that won’t involve lying to his face and leaving him out in the cold and oh, wouldn’t it be nice. Wouldn’t it be nice to pretend, if only for a moment, that you can have such a thing? Wouldn’t it be nice to steal him away and go off the grid, somewhere you can be nothing and no one, devoid of the burdens you both carry?

The words leave your mouth before you can stop them, blood running cold. 

“Where would we go?” you ask, and this time, it’s you who takes a step forward.

Steve’s expression melts into something far more serious, with so much more conviction than before. To him, it’s no longer a fantasy, no longer a pipe dream. He moves closer, meeting you halfway. The lights are dim and warm, the curtains drawn. 

This far out, no one can see or hear you. Natalia herself said the cabin isn’t bugged in any way, and maybe you’re a fool for believing her, but you can’t help it.

“Wherever we can,” Steve says. He pauses for only a moment, caught up in his thoughts before you have his full attention once again. “We can get our hands on a car and keep driving, go somewhere they won’t think to look.”

There’s a tightness to his posture, one that shows he’s ready for action, prepared to pounce. He’s waiting for you to say the word. Waiting for confirmation.

  
And you can’t give it to him.

“It could work,” you say, slow. “But anyone would expect sneaking out in the middle of the night. We do it in the morning. I leave and you follow me or the other way around. First exit we find, we meet there and put our heads together. Figure out what to do.”   
  
“If we find somewhere with a computer, a library maybe, we can get bus tickets or train tickets. Anything we need,” Steve jumps in, something like hope in the bottom of his eyes. “We can make it.”   
  
He punctuates that by getting close enough to put his hand on your shoulder, his palm warm enough to bleed through the thin fabric of your shirt. He squeezes gently and begins to pull away just before you stop him, wrapping your fingers around his wrist and holding him in place.

“Steve.” You can feel it rumble low in your throat. “Don’t move.”

He doesn’t take his hand away. Rather, he slides it to the nape of your neck, thumb skimming just below the base of your skull. There’s no heat to the motion, no urgency behind it, like he’s committing it to memory.

You let go of him long enough to drop your hands to his waist, feeling him move with the touch, closing the last bit of distance between your bodies.

“Don’t move,” you find yourself repeating, just loud enough to be heard. You do your best to focus on the warm weight of his hand, on his breath fanning over your face. “Don’t.”

There’s an endless thrum of misery during your every encounter with him, tainting it with something rotten. When you lean forward, when you feel him meet you just enough to bring your mouths together, cold dread twists at your insides so deeply that you nearly pull away.

It takes less than a second for Steve to respond, his other hand coming up to your bicep as he tilts his head and  _ that _ gives you a better angle, helps you get at his mouth better than before. The heat of it is a welcome reprieve, the feeling of being touched and  _ getting _ to touch seeming to shove your spiraling thoughts to the back of your mind.

“Buck,” Steve murmurs against your mouth, hands coming up to either side of your face. “Bucky, wait.”

He’s pulling back in measures, just far enough that you can see his face, see the faint scar on his crooked nose. His lips are wet with saliva, breath hot and rushed. All the while, he doesn’t let go of you.

You don’t move, you don’t say anything for a moment. “If you don’t want it, Rogers, then say so,” is all you can manage.

Steve shakes his head. “No,” he says urgently. “No, that’s not it. You just seem…” he trails off, gaze flickering over your face with something like suspicion. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Maybe you should stop. You’re not hard. You’re not feeling the feverish want you experienced before, but you don’t want to stop.   
  
You don’t.

“This will make me feel okay,” you say.

Steve is still staring you down, like he’s waiting for you to change your mind. His brows are furrowed together, thumbs lingering at either side of your jaw before he drops his hands down to your shoulders, sliding down your arms.

You take a step closer, if that’s even possible, breathing his air as you say, “We leave from here in the morning,” right against his mouth. “What happens after that?”

Steve sighs into it, muscles easing and tensing as your hands slide up his sides. “We can find a bus station,” he says quietly. “Get as far away from here as we—” he trails off, breath catching as you bring one hand to the back of his neck, press your lips to the corner of his mouth, the spot just below his jaw. “As we can. First bus out. Jesus.”   
  
His skin is warm, pulse thrumming against your mouth, a shockingly intimate sensation. You part your lips there, feel him shiver when your beard rasps against his throat. You tell yourself that this is, above all, a distraction. A way to keep Steve from focusing on you too much.

“We can change the way we look,” Steve continues, throatier now as he leans into your movements, body slotting close with yours. The backs of your knees hit the foot of the bed. “I can grow a beard out, dye my hair. Maybe we give you a buzz cut, get different clothes somewhere. You can camouflage your arm like you did before. Hell, we can try to get out of the country, too. Whatever we have to do.”   
  
He makes a bitten back, almost hurt sound, catching on a gasp as you rasp your teeth over the smooth skin of his throat. You feel it vibrate against your mouth, feel his fingers digging into your sides. It’s enough, enough to leave you shivering and at half-mast, skin prickling all over.

You lift your head, meet his gaze only to find that his eyes are heavy with want and it has your pulse picking up, warmth blooming into your bloodstream. You run your fingers over what feels like a scar, and wonder where it came from.   
  
“We gotta get as close to a border as we can,” you say. “Texas, Washington, Vermont, make sure no one’s watching and get ourselves in.”   
  
Steve’s breaths are matching yours, hot and suddenly urgent. Maybe it’s everything you’re giving him, maybe it’s the thrill of disappearing for good, untethering himself for good. You think you can understand how that feels.

“You’re the one with a passport,” Steve says, sobering up just a little. “You can smuggle me in. I’ll get in the trunk once we get a car, stay in there until we get to where we need to be.”

Your mind is betraying you, telling you a hostel would be best, or maybe sleeping in the car until you can shell out some money and find somewhere worth staying. Maybe you can find work. Maybe Steve can, too. Recede deep enough into the shadows and change your appearances enough that no one would look at you twice.

By that point, you would undoubtedly be on hunted. It would be best if you established yourself somewhere, gave yourself an unremarkable reputation before the information began to leak out.

You couldn’t dare rely on anyone but yourself. Trust your instincts and training and nothing more. Trust—

No, you can’t fall into this. You’re making the right decision. You’re doing what’s best. You won’t be tempted toward anything else.

You don’t allow your breathing, don’t allow your posture to betray you. He has to believe you for now, Yes, he’ll learn the truth eventually, but you need his trust. You need him to believe this is where your intertwined paths are leading.

“They’ll expect us to cross state lines,” you tell him. “We just have to cover our tracks for a while, go somewhere they won’t think to look, then leave the country.”

“It’ll work,” Steve says. “Between the two of us, we can make it.”   
  
“You won’t be able to look back,” you say. “Unless there’s someone who can keep your secrets, you can’t look back.”

“Whatever I have to do, I’ll do it. I don’t care,” Steve insists, voice clearer and firmer than before. “I don’t care. I don’t care, Bucky, just don’t make me give you up again.”

  
You say nothing, tempted to pull away from him. Your skin is crawling, feeling flushed with heat, and it’s too much. It’s all becoming too much.

“I know you don’t remember it all,” Steve continues. “Or remember everything we had, but you did so much for me, it’s only fair I do everything I can for you. I just—” he breathes out, keeps his eyes on you. “You’re the one who said end of the line to begin with and I can’t not hold up my end of that, Buck. It goes both ways. Always will.”

You can’t say it back. Your throat seems to be held in a vise, tightening every time you even think of trying. “Rogers,” you force out instead. “I…”

Steve looks at you expectantly, but even you aren’t sure what you’re going to say. His hand is lingering at your shoulder, thumb pressing gently against your collarbone.   
  
“Just come here,” you say, and drag him in again, catching his mouth in a far more quick, messy kiss. “Quit thinking and come here.”

It’s a tactic, you tell yourself. Of course, you want it, but you need to distract him, and you need to make this feel like a promise.

You’re met with unbridled enthusiasm, and it has an involuntary sound slipping from your mouth. Your fingers twist into Steve’s shirt when he presses in close, slotting his hips with yours. His hand is back in your hair, and his fingers are threading into the strands—not quite pulling or squeezing.

He follows you when you make a move for the bed, and there’s only a brief pause as you right yourself, leaning up on your elbow as you catch Steve’s mouth all over again. His arm is sliding around your upper body, knees bracketing your waist, and it isn’t  _ enough.  _

You switch your positions with ease, looming over Steve as he flops back on the mattress. His chest heaves in unison with yours, and you’ve barely gotten started.

“Shit,” he’s saying breathlessly, but you’re cutting him off, closing the distance once more. He’s kissing you back even hungrier now, like this is all he wants. You slide your hand down to cup over his erection, pressing hard through his jeans, and he groans, back arching upward in a way that makes your spine turn molten. “God, don’t stop.”   
  
You don’t stop. You’re alternating between letting yourself kiss him, grinding your hips against his thigh while you rub the heel of your hand against Steve, feeling his hips twitch upward with every movement.

You’re aching with need, wound tight with it when he says, “I don’t know if we have any slick.”   
  
The implication is there, and it has your insides twisting into knots, tripling your already growing anticipation. You shake your head. “We’ll find something,” you say, and sound utterly unlike yourself. You aren’t sure what you’re actually meant to sound like. “Just take it slow.”   
  
You lean up only to remove your shirt, tugging it over your head. Steve’s hands are hot and his fingers are digging into your hips with what feels like need. “That’s what you want, huh,” you mutter. It’s less of a question and more of an observation.

When Steve pulls his shirt over his head, it fluffs up his hair. His eyes are blown dark now, only a thin blue ring remaining. There’s a flush on his chest, on his throat, all in blotches. “Yeah, Buck,” he says, puffs out a breath, fanning against your face. “Yeah, God. I just—I need to feel you.”

That’s all the convincing you need.

You swallow as you exhale, the action unsteady, stuttering in your chest. You answer by leaning forward when his hand comes to the back of your neck, when he sucks your lower lip into the heat of his mouth, rasping his teeth against it in a way that has you pressing further, pushing him back down against the bed.

“Wait,” Steve says breathlessly, pulling away. “Just wait.”   
  
And then he’s slipping from underneath you, getting off the bed and leaving the room. You can hear the bathroom door creaking open, and there’s a moment where you feel strangely exposed.

You don’t let it last. You use the opportunity to pull your socks off, your jeans, your boxers. Your dick is rubbing wetly at the base of your stomach, and you’re about to take the edge off, curl your fingers around it, but Steve re-enters the room, a jar of Vaseline in his hand.

“Jesus, Bucky,” he says, almost with reverence as his eyes lock onto you, but then he’s coming closer, tossing the jar on the bed before he kicks off his shoes and socks, works at his jeans and his own underwear, and then he’s naked, too, all pale skin and a thatch of dark blond hair between his legs. He looks like he wants this as much as, if not more, than you do. “Not much left in there, but it’s enough. I’ve dealt with worse.”   
  
Your throat feels dry, head swimming with need. “You do it,” you manage to say, and feel a part of you unwind when you begin to stroke yourself. “I wanna see.”   
  
That only further piques Steve’s interest, and before you can say anything else, he’s getting on the bed, opening the jar and spreading his legs and Christ, you feel hot all over, even moreso than before. Steve’s fingers are swiping into the jar, slipping between his thighs. You swallow thickly, trying not to move too quickly or too aggressively. Despite what you asked, you feel your eyes trying to slip shut, your back leaning against the wall, drafty and cold, almost blissfully so.

A part of you wishes you’d asked for this sooner. There’s almost a bittersweetness to it now, one that almost makes you lose all interest entirely.

The breathy sounds coming from Steve, however, are a welcome distraction, and you find yourself stepping closer, noticing the two digits he’s sunken into himself. You stop the movements of your own hand, force yourself to let go. Sweat beads at your temples, words catching in your throat. You think you used to be a talker during moments like this, but you can’t seem to summon your voice. Rather, you watch with a growing sort of desperation. You run the flat of your flesh palm down the hard expanse of Steve’s stomach, feeling his abs contract with every movement he makes.

He might say your name. One of your names. You aren’t sure.

“This is enough,” Steve grits out after a long few moments, pulling three fingers from himself and wiping them on his thigh. “It’s enough. I wanna feel it.”   
  
You breathe out, short and fast, knees feeling prepared to give out before you lean down over him again, prepared to go for the jar just as Steve’s slick fingers stroke over your dick, hard and fast and dragging a needy sound from your lips, vibrating in your throat. Containing it doesn’t help, doesn’t do a thing, and you’re almost relieved when he stops, when you can get your head together.

“How do you—” you begin.   
  
“Like this,” Steve says quickly, hands sliding up your back. “Wanna look at you.”   
  
You can’t let your face betray you, then. You were trained for that. You can manage that much. You nod, grinding your teeth together. You almost don’t want to look at him. You’d rather have him turned over and away from you so he can’t dissect anything about you. You’re been flayed open before him enough as it is.

Still, you line yourself up, right up against his entrance, already feeling the heat of him and forcing yourself to breathe out.

“I don’t know how long I’ll last,” you say. “It’s been a while.”   
  
Surprisingly, Steve huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, pal, been a while for me too,” he says, and it eases your troubles for just long enough that you roll your hips forward. The look Steve gets, eyes struggling to stay open, moan caught behind his lips, is enough for you to stop thinking entirely, sinking into the heat of him slowly, reveling in it.

You curse, half to yourself, and it doesn’t sound like English. A pair of hands slide down over your ass, squeezing the flesh there as you drive forward, exhaling hard as you bury yourself to the hilt into Steve, head dropping forward. “God,” you whisper, bracing yourself on your left arm, the fingers of your free hand splaying against Steve’s chest, over his heart, pounding as wildly as yours. “Steve, I...”

His hips roll upward, cutting your thoughts short and turning them to dust. You can focus on this instead, focus on Steve and the tight heat of him and his face inches from yours and his hands roaming all over you. You meet his movement, righting yourself until you find an angle that’s easy to move with, knees pressing into the mattress. It’s easier than you expected, like you’ve done this days rather than decades ago.

Perhaps that’s the way your body feels sometimes, recognizing old wounds or old pleasures as something fresh.

“You said you remembered the last time we did this,” Steve says tightly, thrusting his hips in time with yours, finding a rhythm that feels far too easy.

You nod, slow and unsure. “Paris,” you answer as clearly as you can. “I know. I do…” you let your gaze flicker over his face, bathed in the dim lamplight. “You still look the same.”   
  
Steve’s hands are sliding up to your face now, smoothing your hair out of your eyes, holding it in place. “So do you,” he says, clenches tight around you, making you bite back a moan.

You shake your head, aware of the fingers scratching gently against your scalp. “Steve, I look like I’ve been through the goddamn wringer twice over,” you tell him.   
  
“You were through the wringer back then, too,” Steve says. “We both were. Never got out of it.”

You snap your hips forward with more fervor, pulling out almost entirely before sinking back into him. You’re leaning into his touches without shame now, somehow, a sense of something close to relief settling in when his palm comes over your cheek, rasping against your stubble. You curl your fingers around his wrist, thumb sliding over the jut of it as you stop, only for a moment.   
  
“Buck?” Steve asks.   
  
You shake your head. “Nothing,” you say, and for a moment, you believe it. “Right as rain.”

He takes it as an opportunity to lean further up, kissing you in a way that feels binding, like he’s prepared to jump into everything he’s promised, into all the lies you’ve fed him.

You start moving again, wrap both arms around his middle as he moves further up the bed, leaning back against the pillows and bringing his legs around your waist. This feels better, closer, hotter, and you fully cover his body with your own, noses almost brushing now. You thrust forward with a shaky breath, let out against Steve’s cheek. You angle your hips, hitting a knot of nerves that has Steve breaking the kiss to curse aloud, muffled into your throat as his fingers dig into his hips.

“God, yeah, like that,” he says, close to your ear. “Just like that.”

  
He’s clenching rapidly around you, in a way that makes you feel like you can go over the edge at any moment, but you stay positioned the way you are, pistoning your hips forward harder than planned, but Steve’s back arches with it, heels digging into the small of your back. You swallow back a pained sound, balls drawing tighter and tighter with every thrust forward.

“Not gonna last,” you repeat. “Don’t think I can.”   
  
Steve is shaking his head. “How do you think I—oh, God,” he groans. “Don’t stop. Don’t even think about stopping.”   
  
You lean upward to get a better angle, grabbing at the meat of his thighs and then snapping your hips forward faster than before, blood feeling searing hot in your veins. You’re drinking him in, refusing to miss a single moment of Steve’s screwed up face, eyes squeezing shut, throat baring itself as his head tilts back.

When you reach between your bodies, start stroking him, slick with pre-come, he makes a sound so close to a sob, you almost stop in your tracks. He’s still urging you on, looking far more steady than you feel. It feels like hours are slipping by, like it won’t be long before you have to choose, before you have to untangle yourself for good.

Somehow, it makes your throat close up, all tight and swollen, almost enough to distract you completely.

You do your damnedest to avoid it, to focus on what’s happening now. You’re getting closer, biting into your lower lip hard enough to draw blood, surely bruising Steve with the desperation in your touch.

“Buck, I’m right there,” Steve says, breathy and thick. “Ain’t gonna take much more for me.”   
  
You speed up your hand, your hips, listening to the filthy sound of skin slapping against skin and smelling the growing scent of sweat and sex. It’s putting a new sort of thrill in your blood, one that feels familiar, and suddenly, this want, this urgency, feels even more right than before. How many times have you had him like this? How many times has he had  _ you _ like this? Your bodies must be so familiar with one another by now that this feels like second nature, this feels like coming home.   
  
You go over the edge with a hoarse cry, just as Steve spills over your fingers. Your body gives out, hips twitching forward of their own volition as you all but collapse forward, forehead braced against Steve’s shoulder. His release is hot between your torso and his own, spread over your hand and wiping away as you pull it off of him, aftershocks over taking your body.

Steve’s breaths are in sync with yours. Panting, heaving things that refuse to slow. You try not to listen for a rattle in his lungs. You try not to focus on his hand rubbing circles between your shoulder blades. You reach upward, fingers sliding into his hair. You barely feel it. The prosthetic only does so much, and it suddenly makes you feel cold, hollowed out, like you shouldn’t have this. Like you don’t deserve it.

Like you don’t deserve to be here at all.

Maybe you don’t. You don’t deserve absolution or redemption, and you certainly don’t deserve to have any sort of comfort after the decades of bloodshed, after the carnage you caused.

Leaving it all behind, leaving Steve behind, is the only option.

You can hear his heart beating, still in an erratic staccato, the same as yours despite the way he’s trying to control his breathing, cheek leaned against the back of your head.   
  
There’s an intimacy, a gentleness to it that leaves you feeling like you can fall right into the mattress, chest turned hollow and cold. Your throat feels thick and tight again, the backs of your eyes searing hot. You don’t bother speaking, neither does Steve. There are no distractions, nothing to pull you out of your thoughts.

Still, you don’t expect the wetness sliding down the bridge of your nose, the saltiness of your own sweat and tears in your mouth. You hope—pray he doesn’t feel it, doesn’t notice it.

“Buck,” Steve is saying, bleary but far too gentle, and God, of course he noticed. Of course he did. “Are you—”

He’s easing back, settling his hand at your nape once more. It’s steadying, but it’s not enough. Your body feels too pliant and too loose, and when he tries to get a better look at you, you find yourself easing into his touch, lifting your head and hovering over him. “It’s fine,” you say, as steadily as you can manage. lungs feeling too tight. “I’m fine.”

Before you can think to stop yourself, the fingers of your left hand trace over his hairline, the shell of his ear, an action that promises nothing. It’s aimless, simply touching to touch.   
  
Steve goes from raw emotion to concern to some combination of the two as he searches you for clues, eyes roaming over your face, squeezing your shoulder gently. “What do you need?” he asks.   
  
You shake your head, swallow hard enough for it to hurt. “Just more of this,” you manage to say. It’s not the answer. You aren’t sure what the answer is anymore. “Don’t feel like talking about it.”   
  
Steve appears to be unconvinced, but he’s still tracing patterns into your skin. You’re still buried inside of him and that’s the most steadying thing you have, even when he seals your mouths together again. He must taste the salt, taste the feverish heat of your skin, but he says nothing and for that, you’re grateful.

It’s all you can ask for.

-

Thankfully, your body doesn’t betray you anymore. You’re able to make yourself focus on Steve again, focus on the faint simmer of arousal returning to your body, returning to half-mast as you thrust lazily into him. He’s in the same space as you are, just remaining in the feeling of too much and nothing at all. Your face is dry and tacky. You still feel like you’re made of soggy paper, liable to crumble under the weight of yourself, but you don’t. You don’t allow it to happen.

You only get up to rinse your face, to grab a wash rag and dampen it before wiping yourself down. It’s just a moment away, to clear your head and stop it from spinning. You squeeze it and wet it all over again before coming back to the bedroom, footsteps silent, even on the creaking floorboards.

Steve has pulled the bedcovers back, but otherwise, his position is almost the same. You toss the rag to him, stepping closer as he cleans himself up, and now, all you want is to tangle your bodies back together, stay this way for as long as you possibly can.

You reach over and switch off the lamp just as Steve drops the rag to the floor, and maybe there’s more of a languidness to your movements, a reverence you tried to hide when you seal your mouths together, but you’re hazy with the afterglow and the faint, fresh thrum of want tugging behind your navel, and you can’t bring yourself to care about hiding it. You won’t have this for much longer, and Steve’s mouth is easy and loose, moving with yours effortlessly. His palms slide up your back, warm and firm. Steadying.

There’s a moment where the kiss breaks, when you roll onto your sides and face each other. Your back is to the door, Steve’s to the window, and the moonlight slipping through turns the ends of his hair silvery, features sharpening in the shadows. Only a miniscule amount of space sits between you, but it’s enough to make you feel cold all over, the chill burrowing into your bones.

Your hand settles on the jut of his hip, and his rests against your flank, thumb brushing over a sensitive spot, just where the thick, veiny scar tissue surrounding your prosthetic begins. You don’t pull away, don’t move a muscle. You just let his fingers trace where they please.

“I mean it,” Steve says quietly, breaking the silence that’s fallen between you. “Say the word and we’ll leave. Whether it’s now or in an hour or in the morning, it doesn’t matter. If you don’t remember everything, that’s not—” he hesitates, mouth flattening into a tight line. “That’s not what I want from you. I just don’t want to lose you, Buck.”   
  
You shake your head, shutting your eyes with it. “Not losing me,” you mutter. “Not the case.”   
  
“Then why does this feel like a goodbye?”

It hits hard, has your chest twisting painfully, but you don’t let it show, swallowing it down. Schooling your face what can only be interpreted as stoic.

You shake your head, shifting close enough until you’re pressed together completely. You try to make the kiss gentle, but there’s a thread of neediness tugging at it. You aren’t sure who it’s coming from, but when it breaks with a soft sound of your mouths, you’re the one to inch forward, leaning further in.

“What does that feel like?” you ask in a whisper, right against his lips.

Steve is tracing some nonsense pattern into your skin. over the knobs of your spine, and you feel him smile, just slightly, against your mouth. Or maybe he’s frowning. Pressed this close, you aren’t sure.

You think he’s going to speak, but he just brushes his mouth against yours again, soft and hot and leaving desire curling in your belly all over again. You can feel the evidence of Steve’s poking against your hip and you reach down, run your fingertips over the length of him, just to feel him shiver with it.

“We don’t gotta do anything else,” Steve says quietly, breath hitching when you ease your fingers away. “Not unless you’re up for it.”   


The more you think about it, a confusing sensation of aching coldness and invasive heat sweeps over your body. You should be thinking about how to slip away, how to make your way to the gas station and to Natalia, but Steve is pressed up against you, smelling of sweat and lingering sex, of something that almost makes your throat close up all over again, and you can’t tear yourself away. Not yet.

“Turn over,” you say, and with your tone as slow and intoxicated as it is, it doesn’t feel like a command. There’s an ease to this that wasn’t there before, strangely enough. “I wanna try something.”   
  
That’s all it takes on your part. Steve turns onto his other side without protest and you press closer, right arm tucked up under a pillow. The heat of Steve’s back presses up against your chest, like he has a furnace burning in the very core of him. You feel yourself fill out again, want lapping over you in waves.

“Go ahead,” Steve says. “Come on, Buck.”   
  
You run your hand over yourself, the smoothness of your palm feeling odd but far from cold, curling your fingers and stroking briefly before lining up, bringing your arm to lock around Steve’s torso.   
  
It takes no effort at all this time, rolling your hips forward before you’re enveloped into the heat of him all over again. You might shiver, breath rushing out of your mouth, against his shoulder just as he curses, hand settling firmly at your forearm. You feel prickly all over, like your nerves have become live wires. Steve’s back, his stomach, are tensing like it hurts.   
  
“I can stop,” you breathe out against his ear.   
  
“No,” Steve blurts out. “No, don’t. We can just stay like this if it’s too much. God, Buck, I just need to feel it.”   
  
You don’t think you can give as much as you did before, save for the slow, barely there rhythm you’re attempting now, but it seems to be enough. Heat blooms from the pit of your stomach to the tips of your ears, and you aren’t sure who makes a needy, broken noise, but then again, Steve isn’t the one sweating all over again.   
  
Until he is, moving back against you slowly, not rushing or slowing down. This feels right. This feels good. With the draft in the room and the moon spilling in, the silence that’s fallen over you save for breathy moans and curses, time feels like it’s stretching and twisting, on the brink of ebbing away completely.

From the way Steve’s elbow rubs against you, you can tell he’s jerking himself off, taking himself over the edge, and you wish you could see it better, wish you could watch the way his brows knit together and his mouth falls open and slack.

You lean forward, just enough for him to turn to you, for you to reach his mouth and suck the softness of his lower lip between your teeth, running your tongue against it as he tenses and clenches around you and—

It takes you by surprise this time, vision going spotty and body going slack, fingers digging into Steve’s hip. He’ll be bruised, just for a little while. By morning, the marks should be entirely gone, like they were never there in the first place.   


You’re half-aware of Steve reaching for something—the wash rag again, wiping his hand before tossing it to the floor again. He doesn’t move after that, just slackens back into the position he was in before, only leaning further into you, hair tickling the side of your face.

Neither of you say a word, neither of you move a muscle. This is preferable. There’s a sense of content here, and you wish you could feel it. Revel in it. Drift off with it.

You watch the clock in the dark, listen to it tick. When you get a look at Steve, his eyes are shut. His breathing has turned slow and deep, rising and falling against your chest, the warmth of his body bleeding into your skin, tacky with sweat.

It would be better, leaving as soon as possible, but you can’t yet.

You can’t.

All you can do is shut your restless eyes, listen to your breaths mingling with Steve’s, and try to gauge just how bad taking Fury’s deal might be.

You don’t sleep. You don’t allow yourself to.

-

When the clock strikes one, you disentangle yourself from Steve.

You move as slowly, as quietly and precisely as you can, feeling cold air hit your body the moment you’re out from under the covers. Steve remains still, breathing slowly. No indication of him waking, no catch in his breath or stiffness to his body. You watch him carefully as you gather your crumpled clothes, freezing in place when he shifts onto his stomach.

It would be so easy to—

You screw your eyes shut, clench your jaw, and steel yourself. Staying near him is a risk you can’t afford to take.   
  
Clothes in hand, you slip through the half-opened door silently, and pad across the hall, avoiding the squeaky spots in the floors. You step into the other bedroom, shutting the door without so much as a click.   
  
And then you get to work.

You stuff your clothes into your duffle, tug your boots on. All you have for a jacket is the one you stole from Steve’s apartment and it’s lost all scent of him days ago, but it still feels wrong on your body. Like a tether to him, to the cabin.

There’s no point in stopping now. Natalia has only given you a few hours, and if you don’t meet her soon, you’re not sure what will happen.

You zip your bag, pull your cap on, and look toward the window.

It’s the only option. Going downstairs, leaving this room, it’s a gamble. Besides, you can make it. You’ve jumped from greater heights.

When you open it, you’re met with a rush of cold wind, stinging your eyes and your cheeks. You squint against it, hoist your bag closer, and crawl outside. Somehow, you tug the window shut. If the slam is too loud, there’s nothing you can do now.

You let yourself drop to the ground, tucking and rolling just before you land on your ankles. Your heart thunders in your chest, pounds in your ears, and no matter how many breaths you take, it refuses to slow down.

All you can do is continue. All you can do is brush the leaves and dirt from yourself and creep around the cabin, glancing up out of the corner of your eye. No lights on, no muffled voice. Steve hasn’t noticed, but by sunrise, he’ll know.   
  
By then, you aren’t sure where you’ll be.

You turn away and walk down the dirt road, follow the tire tracks Natalia left behind, looking nowhere but there, even as your eyes adjust to the dark. The woods are silent save for the wind rustling the trees, for an owl somewhere you can’t quite see.

Your teeth feel like they might grind themselves into dust.

It isn’t long before your feet touch the road, silent on all sides. Natalia had said to continue past the cabin, to follow service signs as they come and to head for the first gas station you saw. That should take some time, an hour at most, unless you ran, but you have time now that you’ve left. You can walk from here, get far enough away that Steve won’t catch up with you, won’t think of where to look.   
  
The thought fills you with a wave of nausea that chills you to the core. You swallow hard, pull your cap further down your brow, and continue walking, only guided by the light of the moon, the stars dotting the sky. You’ve seen them this clear before, you think. So long ago. But you recall the feeling of being worn thin, blood cooling on your skin. You couldn’t appreciate it then, and you can’t appreciate it now. You aren’t meant to look up at the stars or find comfort in someone, to be offered a chance at reprieve. Happiness. 

Maybe you were never made for such a thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why am i posting painful chapters on bucky's birthday? is it because i hate myself? yes, yes it is.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a shorter one, but it’s split up for pacing reasons :) hope you enjoy!

You have no way to tell the time, but your trek seems endless. No cars drive past. The moon is unchanging, and the air only grows colder, bitter and bone-chilling, even for spring. For a while, you wonder if you’ll ever come across the exit. You wonder if you’ll ever find Natalia, but it isn’t much longer before you see a sign pointing toward an exit. It has a restaurant and two hotels.

And a gas station.

You walk toward it, branches crunching under your boots. As you thought it would, there’s a slight snowfall, just a few barely there flakes swirling through the air, but you pay them no mind. You zip your stolen jacket up to your throat and keep walking, now with far more conviction.

The lights ahead are almost a relief, making you feel less like you’re floating endlessly in the night. Distantly, your stomach growls with the possibility of food nearby, but the acidic dread, the guilt welling up seems to stop it in its tracks.   
  
It doesn’t matter, you tell yourself. All that matters now is finding Natalia.   


You continue along the narrow, cracked excuses for sidewalks until you finally come across the gas station. There’s a convenience store connected to it, fluorescent lights guiding you forward through the parking lot.

There are five cars parked. Two up front, three toward the back. You squint at the beat up and dated purple four door before you continue walking forward, heading straight for it. 

She had said you’ll be able to spot her, and sometimes, standing out is the best way to blend in.

You look into the window on the passenger’s side and sure enough, there Natalia is, staring back from the driver’s seat. She’s wearing a black wig and new clothes, loose and nondescript..

Wordlessly, she unlocks the door, and wordlessly, you slip inside.

The moment you shut the door, she pulls out of the parking lot. Her grip on the wheel is slack and easy—secure, but not anxious. Even if she felt it, you wouldn’t be able to tell. That was trained out of her a long time ago.

You breathe out, barely aware of the heating blowing at you. Your duffle is tucked between your feet on the floor, hands idle in your lap. Silence presses so heavily on your ears it’s almost painful, but you won’t allow yourself to be the one who breaks it.

Natalia turns onto the highway soon enough, and the rush of the wind, the truck driving in front of you, are enough to drown out your spiraling thoughts. Enough to give you at least a moment of reprieve.

“Still a man of few words, I see,” Natalia says coolly.

You only turn to stare at her, features gone sharp in the dim, orange tinged light. “Tell me where we’re going,” you say.

“Just a few hours away for now,” Natalia answers. “No safehouses, no connections to SHIELD either. We’re keeping a low profile.”

A few hours away could mean anywhere. You watch the road, feel the car rumbling beneath you. 

“And you’re coming,” you say.   
  
“For now.”

“Don’t compromise your position for me. It’s not worth it.”   
  
“I compromised my position at Sibley,” Natalia says. “This isn’t a gamble anymore. I know how to keep my cover, and I know you won’t shoot me when my back is turned. If we didn’t trust each other, you wouldn’t be here.”   
  
Her eyes burn a hole through you as she says it, face pinched and serious, brows knit together. Before you can respond, her expression smooths out completely, gone back to a mask of composure as she turns back to the road.

“So, what should I call you?” Natalia asks. “Bucky?”

You shake your head. “No,” you say. “Doesn’t feel right.”   
  
You tried. You’ll give yourself that. But as of now, you can’t be Bucky Barnes. You can’t slip back into that persona, can’t play the role of someone who might have died long before he plummeted into the Alps, spilling blood into the freezing streams of the Danube.

Silence follows for a long while. You pass stretches of road with signs for more rest stops. You watch billboard after billboard zoom by, advertising restaurants and hotels and preaching of eternal damnation.

“You can call me what you always called me,” you continue. “I don’t mind it.”

“I would have thought you’d want to put that behind you, too,” Natalia says, but she doesn’t object to it. Not really.

“Wasn’t the Russians who gave me the name,” you say, eyes on the road. “My mother’s family came from…” you stall, just for a moment, righting old words that try to come to your tongue.  _ Not Leningrad, not anymore,  _ you tell some ancient part of you. “They were from St. Petersburg. Came to New York before she and her youngest brother were born.”

Another pause. Natalia turns the heat higher and says, “Yasha it is.”   
  
It makes you feel like your flesh is being peeled back from your bones, hearing it come from someone else’s mouth, but you can live with it. Right now, it’s preferable to anything else.

The road stretches on and the light snow turns to rain. Neither of you say a word for the rest of the night.

-

You reach a motel outside of Newark just before sunrise. The sky is streaked with burnt oranges and dusky blues and your insides twist painfully as you watch it from the window, waiting for Natalia to return with a room key.

It’s been long enough for Steve to wake up, to notice your absence. You can’t help wondering what will happen when he does. Will he call Natalia? Will he take it upon himself to find you, searching the woods just past the cabin? How long will it be before—?

Natalia knocks on the window, stopping your thoughts in their tracks. She motions you to get out of the car before she moves to open the trunk. The air is bitter and damp, even through your layers of clothes, Your fingers tighten around the handle of your duffle.

The trunk slams shut and Natalia appears by your side with two bursting plastic bags. She stalks ahead before you can say anything, beelining for the stairs leading up to another row of rooms.   
  
You almost look over your shoulder, even though you know no one is there, and then you follow her upstairs, catching up just as she opens the door to a drab motel roo with two beds.

It’s dated and cold, smelling of bleach and mothballs, but it will have to do.

“We’re not sticking around here all day,” Natalia says, shucking her jacket off and tugging off her wig along with the cap, revealing her familiar shade of red tucked up in a bun. “Just long enough to get our heads together.”

You knit your brows together. “You’re improvising.”

“Partly,” she clarifies, spilling the contents of her bags onto the bed closest to the wall. “Making it up as you go is the best way to stay off the radar. Plans show patterns, patterns get you caught. Therefore, improvising.”   
  
Among bottles of water, protein bars, gloves, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a pack of MREs, razors and shaving cream, and strangely, garbage bags, is a comb, a pair of scissors, and an electric razor.

“They’re looking for a mop of hair and a scruffy face,” Natalia explains, catching your eye. “You trust me with a blade near your neck?”

You stick your hands deeper into your pockets. “I’d rather you do me in than anyone else,” you say.

You aren’t sure if you’re joking or not.

Natalia gives you a look, loaded with something you can’t quite place. “Shower while you can,” she says, runs a hand over her face. “We’re not stopping after this.”   


“We?”

“Someone’s gotta do damage control,” she says, tugging a brick of a burner phone from her pocket. “And the damage is gonna start any minute.”   
  
You exhale, slow and deep before you close your eyes. “Natalia—”

“If it were twenty years ago and you didn’t get caught,” she says. “You would have done the same thing.”

A thick silence falls over the room, and you disappear into the bathroom without a word, needing to escape from it.

-

There’s no tub, only a stand-up shower.

You grit your teeth, turning the faucet as hot as you can bear, and strip down, only getting under the spray when the mirror steams up.

Still, you find yourself attempting to shrink backward, but the pressure is weak and utterly unlike a hose, hot enough to warm you to the bone. You find a wash rag and scrub your skin until it’s pink. It pulls around your stomach, and you feel your blood run cold as you scrub the last evidence of being with Steve away.

You rinse conditioner from your hair, blink water from your eyes, and shut the shower off, breathing in hot, cloying air. You tug a thin, itchy towel from the rack, tugging it around your waist before stepping out of the shower, hair dripping down your back.

The mirror is still covered in fog, obscuring your reflection. You wipe it with the palm of your hand, skin squeaking against the glass. You look pale in the fluorescent light, eyes red and shadowed, expression twisted up and worn thin, concealed behind your beard.

You open the pack of safety razors and shaving cream, squeezing it into your hand and smearing it onto your face. This feels familiar, something you’ve done a thousand times. You doubt you’ll be liable to slit your own throat due to shaky hands now, though, and even now, you can’t imagine Natalia giving you anything sharper than this.

You pose the razor at the base of your throat and pull upward, listening to the faint scrape of hair as it’s removed in a clean, albeit shaky, stripe.   


-

You pour all of your attention into shaving, into making sure you don’t nick yourself despite knowing it will scab over in less than a minute. The razor needs a rinse after almost every swipe. You stare down at globs of the dark hair in the sink, watching them swirl down the drain when you turn the faucet off. Your face stings as you rinse it, and when you pat your smooth cheeks dry with a towel.

There was something meditative about this once, whether you were going somewhere or not. You never stood unkempt for long, you think. Slicking your hair with greasy pomade and patting your cheeks with aftershave. Even when your good shirt had a hole in it, even when your shoelaces were in tatters, you prided yourself on your appearance.

This isn’t something you feel, but rather something you see—like watching a nineteen year old Barnes through a frosted window, buoyant and young despite his work-roughened hands and tired body. You can picture him kissing his mother on the cheek or ruffling a mop of blond hair bent over a half-finished poster, asking if he’s sure he doesn't want to—

You look down, swallow the guilt that rises up your throat, teeth grinding together. The breath you take is shaky and slow and you shut your eyes for a moment, try to rid yourself of the sensation of Steve’s hair between your fingers, or a bony pair of shoulders under your arm, a body that felt too big for so long pressed up against yours.

Natalia knocks on the door, just loud enough to halt your thoughts in their tracks.   
  
“I’m coming out,” you say, drop your towel. You left clothes folded on the closed toilet seat and you tug them on quickly, feeling your hair soak into your t-shirt.

When you open the door, Natalia is still standing there. “Thought you would give yourself a mustache,” she says, deadpan. “Would have been a pretty good disguise.”

“I’m not in a joking mood,” you say, stepping past her.

“You never are, but it was worth a try,” she says. “Wanna take a seat?”

You notice the desk chair has been pulled out, covered in a torn garbage bag, sat on top of more torn garbage bags. It makes sense. Not a single trace of you should be found anywhere, even somewhere as unremarkable as this.

So, you sit down, push down any reservations about being touched in such a clinical way.  _ You can trust her,  _ you remind yourself. If you have anything, you have confidence you won’t be turned on.

Natalia runs a comb into your hair and it rasps against your scalp. You grimace at the snarl of a tangle, but it quickly smooths out. “You’re in good hands, by the way,” she says. “I’ve cut hair before.”   
  
“So have I,” you say.

Natalia doesn’t press, and you’re almost grateful for it. Almost. She pulls a section of hair taut with the comb, and then you hear and feel the soft  _ snick _ of the scissors, hear the faint sound of your hair falling against the makeshift tarp below you.

“Doubt it was hair this long,” she mutters. You don’t have to look at her to know she’s all concentration, expression smoothed out with it, not unlike the way she peers through the scope of a rifle.

Another snip, and then another. A lock falls onto the back of your right hand, and you lift it between the thumb and forefinger of the left before you let it fall to the floor with the rest of your hair. A dark, fluffed up mess.

“No,” you tell her, and once again, recall the phantom sensation of blond, downy hair on your fingertips. “I don’t think it was.”

-

Natalia’s movements quicken once most of your hair has been cut off, each snip getting more precise, closer to your scalp, to the nape of your neck, leaving you feeling the contrasting sensations of the cold scissors and her warm hands.

You try to focus on the way the plastic bristles of the hairbrush rasp against your scalp. The snip of the scissors becoming something like a rhythm. How many times have you sat just like this, letting someone trim your hair back into shape? You can recall your mother’s strong, slender hands tilting your head this way and that, your sister standing too close and analyzing her every move. Another pair of hands and a lilt of a voice saying  _ well, since you’re already here, boyo, _ and finding yourself with a cut so similar to Steve’s.

“No word yet, then” you say, trying not to phrase it as a question. “Didn’t hear your phone.”

Another snip, right over the shell of your left ear. “It’s still early,” Natalia says. She runs the comb through your hair, and then steps to your right side, torso brushing up against your arm as she gets at the stubborn stray ends. “Gives you more time to move out before he notices something’s off. He would have called if he saw you went MIA.”   
  
“Or he just started looking on his own,” you mutter.   


“Well, one thing’s for sure,” Natalia says, and then she’s moving in front of you, combing your hair forward to cut the rest of the length down. You notice how strangely light your head is, how exposed your neck feels as she meets your gaze, and she’s not even finished yet. “He’s not gonna check a Motel 6 in Jersey. No trail leading him here.”   
  
You knit your brows together, choosing to look at the side of her throat rather than her eyes. All you can do is hum quietly, not quite agreeing. Steve is many things, but he’s far from foolish.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Natalia says quietly.

_ Snip _ . A long lock of hair falls into your lap, and then another. “Nothing worth telling,” you say.

“You’re getting cold feet, aren’t you?” Natalia asks.

That’s when you meet her eyes, just for a moment, and then she’s going back to cutting, finishing her work off. When she finally sets the comb and scissors down, you say, “It doesn’t matter. There’s no point in stopping.”

It’s quiet, like it’s meant to be a secret. Natalia seems to take it as such, not responding as she dusts your hair from her clothes. You dust it off your own shirt, off your too-stiff jeans.

And then she steps away, returning with the clippers and turning them on with a low, endless thrum. She brings a hand to your head to tilt it, and the vibration against your ear, the sound of it, the feeling of tilting your head back...it has te phantom sensation of electrocution radiating into your  _ teeth,  _ and it’s not the clippers anymore. It’s being subjected to electroshock therapy, to Rumlow’s stun baton, to The Chair, and—

“Turn it off,” you burst out, feeling cold all over. “Turn it  _ off.” _

Immediately, Natalia does. You expect her to ask why, to try and talk you down, but she only drops her hand to your shoulder, just for a moment, and then she pulls away. “Should have figured that was a bad idea,” she says, not unkindly, not unapologetically.

You shake your head quickly, breath tremoring. “It’s,” you start off roughly, heart pounding. “It’s fine. I’m fine. You can keep going.”

“Not happening,” Natalia says. “Cut and a shave should be enough.”

“Natalia,” you insist. “I’ll be fine.”

She meets your eyes, standing on your left side with her arms crossed tight and the clippers in one hand. “Once I start, I can’t stop,” she explains. “Are you sure you don’t want to do this on your own?”   
  
Gingerly, you nod. You remind yourself where you are and remember to focus on your surroundings. You won’t get lost in those memories. You won’t.   
  
“If I do it myself, it’ll be worse,” you say. “You can keep going.”   
  
For a moment, she just stands there watching you, waiting for you to change your mind, but then she turns the clippers back on and comes closer, hand returning to your shoulder.   
  
You shut your eyes, putting all of your focus into your breathing, and grip the arm rests when the clippers tough your scalp.

-

Somehow, you manage to make it through.   
  
The noise, the vibrations, they both fade away after a while, and you don’t even dare to speak as Natalia continues, precise about her work, but it’s not much longer before she touches up the back of your head, shutting the razor off and plunging the room into a heavy silence.

You find yourself tilting your head from side to side, feeling even lighter than before. Air rushes over your scalp, leaves the newly exposed skin prickling.

“Wanna give me a verdict?” Natalia asks. “I need to get rid of this mess.”

You walk toward the bathroom, flicking the light switch on as you step inside even though you almost dread seeing your reflection. You’re not sure what will happen. You’re not sure how you’ll feel, but you look in the mirror and...oh.

Oh.

For a moment, you feel like you’re looking at a ghost. You feel both stripped raw, like your stomach has fallen to your feet, but you can’t look away. You’re transfixed by your own reflection.

You’re transfixed because you look nothing like the old photos. You still look drawn and tired, skin still too pale, but it’s helped somewhat by your clean-shaven face. 

It’s nothing like the cold stoicness of the Winter Soldier, and nothing like the frazzled thing who broke into Steve’s apartment after dragging him from the river. 

Perhaps you look a little more like Barnes, but not by much, not with your hair cropped so short that only dark stubble remains. Your eyes are much older than his, and that alone shows the difference between each part of you. You’re stuck somewhere in the middle, not sure if you prefer one persona to the other.

Right now, you’re no one. You’re just a nameless man on the run. Nothing and no one to claim, just like the ancestors you never knew.

-

When you step out of the bathroom, Natalia is cleaning up the last of the mess. “So,” she says, still looking away from you. “What do you think?”

“It’s better,” you say, almost reaching to push your hair out of your eyes before realizing there’s nothing to push away. “Thank you.”   


Natalia tosses the garbage bag by the door, sits down on the edge of the bed. “I wouldn’t get too comfortable here,” she says. “If you want to get out of the country, it has to be today.”  


You shut your eyes for a moment, rest the small of your back against the desk. “You know I don’t doubt you,” you begin. “But I can’t see walking into an airport right now.”   
  
Natalia shakes her head. “You’re not walking into an airport,” she says. “I have my resources and you can get out of here without anyone being the wiser. SHIELD included.”

You say nothing, only waiting for more.   
  
“I told you I wasn’t completely winging it,” Natalia continues. “I know someone, friend of a friend, and he’s meeting us at Port Newark in an hour.”   
  
Your jaw clenches tight. “Why didn’t you—”   
  
“Need-to-know basis,” Natalia cuts in. “You need to know, and now I’m telling you. I’ll explain more when we get to the port.”

Before either of you can speak, her phone begins to ring.

There’s no point in wondering who it could be.   
  
A muscle in Natalia’s jaw pulses. “I need to—”

“Go,” you force out. “Just go.”   
  
And just like that, she pulls her hood up and slips out the door. Her footsteps are slow and loud, fading away as she gets as far away as she can. Out of earshot from you, then. 

You aren’t sure what to think of that.

All you can do is try not to think of what could be being said. It goes around your head endlessly as you reposition your things in your bag, organize the passports, fold the clothes to make room for the food and water. Your head aches as you grit your teeth together, skin crawling all over. It had to be done, you remind yourself. It was resign yourself to a life of being watched constantly, being treated like a bomb about to detonate or run.

And run alone.

You won’t allow yourself to entertain unattainable ideas anymore. You tossed those away the moment you trudged down the road to meet Natalia.

Running was always the plan, wasn’t it? You were always going to run. You were just sidetracked. You were distracted. If you hadn’t found—

Your mouth tastes of bile. No, you couldn’t have let it happen. Saving Steve from a fate akin to your own was the only course of action to take, and you would have ran from there had you the means to. Had you made it out of the garage unscathed, you would have been trudging through some city far away from any pocket of action.

You realize you’re gripping the comforter too hard and force yourself to let go. You feel shaky all over now, empty through and through. The longer Natalia’s phone call lasts, the more uneasy you feel. The more your mind races, the deeper the ache in your chest grows, and oh, you don’t want to feel it. You want to stuff it full of gauze and soak up all the poison, all the rotting guilt festering there and not feel anything at all. 

You weren’t made to feel remorse. You’ve felt less remorse with the blood of innocent men and women on your hands, when your brain was disconnected from your body and you barely knew what a body was at all, thoughts all full of holes. Disjointed things that never lead anywhere.   
  
What you wouldn’t give to have it back. There’s nothing left for you now. You don’t deserve to grieve or ache, love or hate. Nothing should linger inside of you save for your cold precision and the hollow thrill of a kill. Once, you craved the creeping chill of ice spidering up your throat, forcing you into cool darkness, but that strange, death-like sleep was one you always woke from, half-thawed and strapped into The Chair to stop your shaking body from slipping out of it.

So, perhaps you never wanted the creeping chill of cryostasis or sedatives slugging through your veins. What you wanted was the death you refused to die.

-

You sit by your bursting duffle, boots tight on your feet, and wait.

And wait.   
  
When Natalia finally returns, her expression is tight and drawn. She pockets the room key, resting her back against the door, arms crossed tight over her chest. “Secret’s out,” is all she says.

You wring your mismatched hands and avoid the deepening pit in your stomach. “What happens now?” you ask.   
  
“You get on a ship and get the hell out of here,” Natalia says.   
  
“You know that’s not what I meant,” you tell her. “Tell me where he goes from here.”   
  
“Listen to me,” Natalia says, firm. “If you’re going to run, you can’t look back. You can’t. Maybe one day, but not today. If you’re compromised, you won’t get far. Believe me, I know.”

You want to press for more. You want to ask if Steve is going to take matters into his own hands and somehow catch onto your trail. You want to find his number in Natalia’s phone and write it down for safekeeping. You want her to tell him you’ve died all over again and you won’t ever be coming back.   
  
It’s all boiling inside of you like hot oil, searing your insides until they dissipate. You shut your eyes to escape Natalia’s unwavering gaze and remind yourself what she was forced to leave behind to be free.   
  
“You said his name a few times, at the academy,” Natalia admits, and your fist twists in the bedspread. “You called one of the girls Rebecca once, but you said his name, too. Back then, I didn’t know who you were talking about, and when I asked, you didn’t even realize you said it.”   
  
You grind your teeth together, “I don’t know what you want me to say,” you mutter.

“I think I already said it,” Natalia says, and the quiet is heavy between the two of you until she adds, “We should leave now rather than later.”   
  
It’s always been like this between the two of you—too cold or too warm, both of you pulling away no matter what. 

You’ve always been fragments of a person to her, and she’s only shown fragments of herself to you, even as a child. All you have is the shaky foundation you’ve always had, struggling to grow as the world shook apart around it.

You grab your bag, do a final sweep, and then follow her back out into the morning light.   
  
-

Natalia’s wig is back. You’ve pulled your gloves on. Nothing looks amiss save for the purple four-door driving toward the shipping port.

The air stinks of salt water, dead fish, and gasoline. It’s achingly familiar, and you can feel phantom soreness in your shoulders. You can recall the taste of a cigarette, warm between your grimy, calloused fingers as you tuned out the endless chatter of the other men on break. You were a docker once, working yourself to the bone for a paycheck that barely got you groceries.   
  
You breathe in, slow and deep, and try not to think of a home you still aren’t sure you can miss.

-

The car soon slows to a stop, and after shutting it off, Natalia scribbles numbers onto a slip of paper.   
  
“You’re gonna dock wherever Felix can get you,” she says. “And then you’re going to call me from wherever you end up.”   
  
Her scrawl is sharp and clear, and you pocket the paper after looking it over. “What will you do from here?” you ask.

“I’m gonna wait till your ship leaves and tell Fury I’m looking for you,” Natalia says. “Tell him I have eyes out for you, and that I’ll take care of it. We trust each other, and I’m taking advantage of that. I’m  _ compromising _ that. For you.”

Her tone, her gaze is far from venomous, but the weight is impossible not to see. You’re asking too much of her.

You swallow, refusing to look away from her. “I know I owe you for this,” you say. “I owe you everything, Natalia.”

A muscle in Natalia’s jaw twitches, just faintly. “Well,” she says. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”   
  
Before you can speak, her fingers curl around the wrist of your right hand. Her palm is warmer than you expect it to be, bleeding into your skin.

You shift until you can grab her fingers, an impulse. You feel rubbed raw from the inside out, unsteady enough to do something as foolish as this, but she squeezes back, so firmly it almost hurts.

“I can’t stick around,” Natalia says as she lets go. “Just know Felix has blue hair, he doesn’t know anything about you aside from the fact that you’re a friend, and he doesn’t ask questions unless he feels like it’s necessary, so don’t give him any reason not to trust you.”   
  
Your hand feels empty, cold wherever Natalia touched you. A part of you doesn’t want to leave, wanting to stay in the warmth of the car and in the lumpy passenger seat because the last thing you want is to be alone.

But this is the path you’ve chosen, lonely as it is. Natalia said it herself, you can’t look back.

“Natalia,” you begin.

“No goodbyes,” Natalia tells you, leaving no room for protests. “I’ll see you in a month.”   
  
You aren’t sure if that’s going to happen or not, aren’t sure whether you’ll make it or throw yourself into the choppy waves halfway through the voyage, but still, you nod.

“No goodbyes,” you echo, nod once. “I’ll…” you search for the right words. “I’ll be in touch.”   
  
And then you get out of the car, refusing to turn back, to listen for the sound of Natalia pulling away. She trusts you’ll find Felix, that you’ll board the ship and come out unscathed. From here, the water is steely grey and choppy, smelling of rotten fish and salt. This time, it makes you feel sick, stomach cold and slimy.

You walk, and walk, and walk, until the sound of chatter fills your ears, and then sure enough, you catch a glimpse of a stick-thin man leaning against a shipping crate, taking a long drag of a cigarette.   
  
His hair is as blue as the sky, the roots a pale brown.  


  
Before you can get any closer, he turns your direction and stalks forward with the authority of a general. He tosses his cigarette off to the side, and the closer he gets, the grimier he looks. He has a sunken, circular scar on his cheek, like a bullet went clean through it. He can’t be more than forty.   
  
“So, no visit from Natasha,” Felix says, in a strange mish-mashed accent. “What a shame.”   
  
You want to ask how he knew to talk to you, but perhaps you’re not the only one here with sharp instincts. You say nothing, only shaking your head.   
  
Felix shoves his hands into the pockets of his coveralls, foot tapping against the ground for only a moment. “I’ll get you on while the goons are distracted,” he says. “They never notice a thing. I swear on my mother’s grave.”   
  
You don’t look back. You don’t think of the car. You don’t think of the cabin. You don’t think of Natalia. You don’t think of Steve.

All there is to do is follow Felix past the sounds of low voices and the mass of tired, overworked bodies. He walks you wordlessly onto the ship, where the smell has somehow grown less prominent, closer to gasoline and sawdust as you’re led into a covered stairwell, down and down again, until the silence presses upon your ears.   
  
-

There are endless twists and turns, and Felix almost looks bored with his task. Another short stairwell, and then finally, a hallway with a single door at the end.

Suddenly, Felix snorts, a phlegmy thing. “I bet you thought I’d put you in a shipping container,” he says, half-serious. “Too risky. Not uncommon for them to—” he whistles, gestures his hand veering downward. “No one ever comes down here. Nothing for them to find, anyhow.”

  
He unlocks and opens the door, which reveals a wood-paneled closet with a mattress shoved inside of it, taking up almost all of the floor space. There are two sun-bleached books resting on top. An exposed, too-bright lightbulb sways above it all.   
  
You expected worse. 

“Right,” Felix says. “I’m gonna come after you twice a day. Let you out to do your business. If I can bring food down, I will, but I can’t make any promises, so I hope you have your own. Those got left behind. Read ‘em if you like. If you read Swedish, I mean. You can get in there now unless you need to see a man about a dog.”

“I’ll be fine,” you say, and Felix barely meets your eyes as you step into your makeshift room.   
  
“Wow, you’re an easy one,” Felix says. “Easier than the last one Romanoff set me up with.”   
  
You only narrow your eyes, and don’t press for more. You drop your duffle to the floor, take a step back.   
  
“I’ll be in around the evening,” Felix says, and shuts the door almost completely. “Sit tight when we head out.”

“Wait,” you say, too low. You clear your throat. “Where are we—”

“We’ve plenty of time to talk later, fella,” Felix says. “Plenty of time.”   
  
And then the door shuts, locking tight before Felix’s footsteps fade away.

You pull a string and shut the light off, and then you lay flat on the mattress, like a body on a slab.   
  
When the ship begins to rock, swaying and groaning as it makes its trek away from the docks, you shut your eyes and don’t open them again for a very long time.


	16. Chapter 16

You drift into a feverish, restless sleep, jolting awake when the ship rocks hard beneath you and lifting yourself onto your elbows, chest heaving, the last dregs of a word lingering on your lips.   
  
In your haze, you almost reach out for a warm body, but turn to find nothing but the mattress and the worn walls.

You lie back heavily and try to calm your racing heart. Whatever your nightmare was has left you unsteady, but as hard as you try, you can’t recall anything. Only your own panic.

You startle at a knock on the door, heavy and slow.   
  
“Hey, in there,” Felix says, muffled. “Coast is clear if you need to come out.”   
  
_ Breathe,  _ you tell yourself, and then lean forward to rap your knuckles against the door, giving him the go-ahead. Almost immediately, the door is unlocked and Felix stands before you, half-illuminated by the flickering lights just above him.

“What time is it?” you ask, voice scratchy with exhaustion. Your body protests as you stand, and it only worsens your headache. Your skull feels like it’s being squeezed in a vise.

“Midnight,” Felix answers. “I came knocking a few hours ago, but it seemed like you were out cold.”   


He says nothing else. He nods back up the way you came and you follow him, just as silent. It isn’t long before you reach a dingy bathroom. You shut the door, relieve yourself, and wash your hands at a spurting sink with ice cold water. 

For once, it doesn’t bother you, or maybe it does and you're just too numb to notice. You splash your face with it, rinse your mouth with it, and don’t dare look at your reflection.

-

This soon becomes a routine.   
  
You sleep and eat in your makeshift room. Felix comes after you twice, sometimes three times a day. You remember you’re fluent in Swedish and read through both books to avoid thinking of anything else. You don’t go near your notes and you certainly don’t read over them again.

However, that doesn’t stop the flood of information that comes when you try and fail to sleep. The ship rocks on and you listen to the gurgle of the ocean, the engines rumbling far beneath you as disjointed images and feelings swirl through your mind. Voices you can’t quite place and feelings of content and terror alike leave you disturbed, cold and sick.

Your nightmares worsen from there.

They become senseless and frenzied. You see the world through a scope and from the edge of a foxhole. There are modern cars and greengrocers, automats and buildings made of glass and steel. You breathe in and you can smell the tropical air of the jungle, taste the ocean on your tongue, but when you blink, you’re blinded with snow and your hands ache, ache and burn and something groans beneath them before—

The gasp that rips out of you almost turns to a scream, but you have half a mind to shove your fist in your mouth. Even then, you don’t pick up your notebook. You refuse to get lost in your thoughts. Even in this barren room.

That is, until your nightmares are less disjointed and take on the form of a memory.

You dream of hanging off the edge and letting yourself fall into oil-slick, debris-ridden water and let yourself sink until you can get your sights on Steve, but he’s nowhere to be found, so you dive deeper despite your lungs aching for air, your chest spasming with it. You can feel the heat of explosions at your back, propelling you deeper and deeper below the surface, until you’re close to the floor of the river.

That’s when the water turns red. 

A steady trail twists past you, and you don’t have to look down to know Steve is there, but you do anyway, finding him caught in the mangled remains of the helicarrier. A long, metal rod is buried in his stomach, and it only has him sinking faster, no matter how quickly you swim after him.

Even underwater, he’s limp and unresponsive, head lolling forward when you finally bring your hands to his face, eyes refusing to open when you shake him. There’s a thick line of blood slipping past his lips, trailing from his nose, too, dark bubbles floating upward. He’s dying right before your eyes, and you can feel your chest spasming with the need to breathe, your fingers growing numb as you struggle to hold onto Steve..

That isn’t what happened. You  _ know _ it isn’t what happened because you’re alive. You know you broke the surface before Steve’s body could give out, but the water filling your lungs feels real. The weight of his body, your broken arm, weighing you down, dragging you to the bottom of the river feels real. The rest of the helicarrier invading your vision and hurtling towards you feels real, but it isn’t. It isn’t, it  _ isn’t, _ and yet—

“NO!” It rushes out of your mouth before you can stop it, and you can taste salt on your tongue, chest tight and painful. Something is holding you down, and as your eyes adjust, you find it’s only the threadbare blanket you were left with. Over the crash of the waves and the groan of the ship, you aren’t sure if you’re mumbling or screaming, brain still half lost in the throes of your nightmare.

You run your hand over your face and it comes away soaked. Your heart refuses to stop pounding and for a moment, you wish it would stop completely.

The breath that shudders out of you feels razor sharp, scraping at your throat, tasting of blood. You prod at your inner cheek with your tongue and the shredded skin stings, hot and painful. 

You stand up, knees buckling violently as you tug on the string above your head. The lightbulb flickering on burns your eyes, but you force yourself to adjust, sitting down heavily and rooting through your duffle with shaking hands until you find your notebook and pen, frantically flipping to a blank page.   
  
_ I left him,  _ you write in a jagged scrawl, pen digging into paper.

_ I left him, I left him, I left him. _

-

~~_ We could have _ ~~

~~_ I never wanted to _ ~~

~~_ If I listened to _ ~~

You toss the book against the wall. You want to punch a hole through it, want to ram your head against it until you’re bloody with it, but all you can do is sit exactly where you are, head in your hands.

-

The next two days drone on, seemingly endless and leaving you feeling picked clean of anything worthwhile.

Even the ship seems silent, the engines muffled and soft against your ears. Your stomach is empty and gnawing at itself, but all you can keep down is the flavorless crackers from your MRE, and you almost lose them during one of your two bathroom breaks. You aren’t sure where it’s coming from, the sudden waves of sickness. Is it guilt? Is it fear? Some sick concoction of everything that’s been building inside of you since you found yourself unbound from any handlers, from HYDRA as a whole?   


Once the thought of HYDRA comes in, it refuses to leave you be. 

You feel like you’re sweating out everything you’ve ever endured. Memories of the Bear Pit, of the cryo tank, The Chair, the blurred faces of handlers and doctors, needles slipping into your veins, filthy rags being tossed over your face before you were doused in freezing water. Vial after vial of blood being taken, cuts tearing through your body, biting through your lower lip while a bone saw tore through what remained of your left arm.

Your stomach flops around inside of you like a fish. Your skin crawls from lack of touch. The walls close in. You allow them to, and feel tempted to brace yourself for the familiar rush of freezing air.

-

When you think you can’t take it any longer, Felix knocks on your door and says the ship is about to dock. You’re given only five minutes to pack your things. Grime sits on your skin like a film, and your stubble has grown back with a vengeance. You can smell yourself, ripe and rotten.   
  
Felix leads you up the stairs and out from the mustiness of the bowels of the ship. You can smell the brine of the sea and fresh warm air, even from here.

_ Not warm _ , you think.  _ Hot. _   


“Port Said,” Felix says. “Doesn’t take much to get to Alexandria from here, just a train ride. Are you sure you don’t want to get off?” 

You’re sure you’ve been to Egypt, or maybe you haven’t. You’re not entirely sure. You consider saying yes, consider staying just for a moment, and shake your head, hands deep in your pockets. 

“Where do you go,” you ask, swallowing around your dry, aching throat. “From here.”

“Constanta,” Felix answers. “Then Odessa, and so on.”

“Constanta is far enough,” you say.

“Then I hope you speak Romanian, fella,” Felix says, and you almost shrink back when his hand slams down on your shoulder, which is strange. Even as weak as you feel, you’re bigger and stronger than him. “Back down to your quarters you go. Before anyone sees you.”   
  
It doesn’t matter if it’s an order. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been halfway lost in memories of subordination and just how you were conditioned. You need to keep going.

-

Thankfully, it takes less than two days to dock in Constanta.

You find yourself shockingly lucid throughout it, like you really have sweated out a fever. You’re unable to sleep, opening your notebook to scrawl down what to do once you arrive. You’ll need a map, maybe somewhere to sleep, too, but these thoughts are soon cut short, because you’re suddenly docking, being all but shoved off the ship by Felix unceremoniously.   
  
“Never caught your name, fella,” he says. “But you were easy cargo.”   
  
You squint up at him, the late afternoon sun blinding you. He’s standing at the edge of the ship, right by the ladder. “I owe you, don’t I?” you ask. “You got me this far.”   
  
Felix makes a noncommittal sound and takes a step back. “It’s what I do,” he says. “Give Natasha my love.”   
  
And just like that, he’s gone, disappearing somewhere with the rest of the crew, meaning there’s nothing left for you here.   
  
You hoist your bag further up your shoulder and begin to walk.

-

The brisk, briny sea air is a stark contrast from the tease of heat in Egypt, but the cold is no stranger to you. You continue walking, avoiding any eye that looks your way, and follow the signs leading you forward.

You already know you’re out of food. It lasted long enough, and yes, you should get something into your stomach, but the bus station up ahead is calling you forward and before you know it, you’re huddled in a corner, digging through the side pocket of your bag.

Somehow, you manage to find a small stack of lei and you’re so tired, so worn thin, you feel a lump thicken in your throat at the sight of it. 

You walk up to the kiosk, look at the sign filled with cities and departure times. According to the calendar, it’s Friday, April 25th.

You slide your money over when the woman behind the counter stares you down through a wall of plexiglass, and buy one ticket to Bucharest.

-

The bus arrives after twenty minutes of waiting, and you get on, choosing to sit all the way in the back despite the scarce passengers on board. Your eyes settle on the sea, a deep bright, blue that seems to blend in with the sky.   
  
You’ve been on a ship for almost two weeks, but you feel like you haven’t seen the ocean in decades.

-

You pass through rolling fields of green, past farms and cattle and over rivers. Most of the other passengers are asleep save for the couple up front, bickering quietly. The rumble of the bus drowns them out well enough, and you find yourself drifting into unawareness so many times, it doesn’t matter.

The sun begins to set.  You watch freeways rush by, half-finished buildings and offices rush by until you reach the city, until someone stops off in Old Town and you get off, too, in the midst of restaurants and bars and clubs. There are more people than you were expecting, but it’s Friday, and most of them are too drunk to notice you, so you make your way through the crowds, through the streets filled with tables and chairs.

Shops are still open, but the streets are too choked with people, and despite your tired feet, you walk until you decide to ask someone where you’ll find a hotel. They point you in the direction of a hostel, and when you arrive, you know you plan to spend as little money as possible. It turns out the only way to do that is by sharing a room with seven other people.

You’ll bite down your hesitation and deal with it. For now.

The room is empty when you step inside, but cluttered. Whoever is staying here is still out, and will likely not be back for hours, which means you might actually be able to shower. You might be able to sleep for a couple of hours rather than in fifteen minute bursts. You wonder if you were a light sleeper before the war ever began.

The only made-up bed in the room is springy and creaks beneath you when you sit down on it, but you don’t linger for long. You go straight into the bathroom. You relieve yourself. You wash the grime and sweat from your body and prepare to wash your hair, even when you only feel the short stubble of it against your palm. You wash yourself twice, drying off with your t-shirt. You brush your teeth three times, wash your face until your skin squeaks with it.

You can hear chatter from the next room over, booming footsteps from the room above you. You smell something like cigarette smoke, hear shouting from the street down below, horns honking up a storm, sirens blaring and fading away.

It doesn’t exactly strike a chord or pull a memory from your head, but it’s the buzz of the city that’s getting to you, almost soothing in its chaos.

You pull on sweatpants and a clean shirt that’s been wrinkled beyond belief. You stuff your used clothes into your duffle and stuff it between your knees before you pull a scratchy blanket over your head and force yourself to sleep, tumbling into it like someone’s injected you with a sedative.

-

You wake when the sun is halfway up and the door is clicking open. There are people in here now, most of them asleep. Sprawled out in their beds. Snoring or with their noses in their smartphones. They don’t pay you any mind, and you still have your belongings, luckily.

The bathroom is empty when you go inside. You clean yourself up and get dressed quickly before you leave the room, storing your things in a locker despite how reluctant you are to leave it behind, but it’s too conspicuous, walking around like that. You want to understand your surroundings without worrying. You want to get to know the area and get some food into your empty stomach.

When you step out, the air is breezy, the sky overcast. You breathe in and out, take in the city and map it out with your feet. 

You soon find yourself in the back of a crowded cafe with your journal and pen, a steaming cup of black coffee beside you. You bite into the baklava you ordered, entirely on a lark, and it’s all sticky sweetness on your fingers. Warm flakes of pastry and nuts coating your tongue, honey dripping at the corner of your mouth. Your stomach growls with it, more ravenous than before.  _ I’ve tasted this before _ , you think madly, almost feverishly.

In the memory, your left hand isn’t your left hand. It’s soft flesh, not too roughened. Not then. Soon those hands would be thick and white with callouses and would never, ever look nice. Just like now. Like the nails on your right hand, gnarled and bitten to the nub, scabbed from your nerve-fueled biting. An oral fixation. You didn’t know you had such a thing.

You set the pastry down and wipe your fingers. You wash it all down with bitter coffee, just a touch too hot, but it grounds you. Your stomach is rightfully gnawing at itself with hunger. Your head aches for more reasons than one, but you can’t forget yourself.

However small, this is a memory. You have to keep track of them more diligently, in case they’re lost again and because you have no one to verify whether or not they’re real anymore. You have to take care of yourself. You have to figure out what to do from here, or how to stay afloat if Bucharest is where you decide to stay.

The list you draw out is in bullet points, and you don’t even know why you’re making it, but you need  _ something _ . A purpose. A plan.  _ A mission _ , your mind adds unhelpfully.

But it’s not a mission. There won’t be any more of those. Not now, not ever again. You’ll keep blood off your hands and you’ll be the one in control. You’ll live among other people. You’ll learn to adapt.

You’ll learn to survive.   
  
Maybe you’ll find freedom, too. Find the other memories you’ve lost. Maybe one day, you’ll be able to see the world with your own eyes, and not through the scope of a rifle.

-

You find a payphone and load it up with coins, dialing the number Natalia left you with, the same old scrap of paper held in your free hand.  
  
Two rings, four, and then finally, the receiver clicks, but no one on the other line speaks. Dread simmers somewhere in the core of you, heavy and dark. You don’t even hear breathing on the other end.

“I’m alone,” Natalia finally says. “Tell me where you are.”

You bite back the breath you almost release, relief washing over you in waves. “Bucharest,” you answer, low with your lips almost brushing the receiver. Your eyes scan over the street, suspicious despite no one paying you any mind. You’re sweating under your collar.

“Well, that was sooner than I expected,” Natalia remarks, surprisingly cool. “I thought I wouldn’t hear from you for another couple of weeks.”

“I could have kept going,” you say, run your hand over your face. “I think I picked a good place to stop for now.”   
  
“Did you find someplace to stay or are you roughing it on the street?” Natalia asks.

“No, I...I found somewhere,” you say, and even quieter than before, you give her the address. Now, you hear the scratch of a pen against paper, the rustle of it being tucked away.   
  
“Keep your head on your shoulders,” Natalia says, quiet, like she’s worried someone might hear. “I’ll be there tonight around eight. Wait for me outside.”

“Tonight?” you all but burst out. “How are you going to—?”

She hangs up before you can say another word.

-

The next few hours are restless.

You walk the streets with no location in mind, torn up with nerves. You eat in the far corner of a restaurant that might about as old as you and glance at the clock every so often, watching the day slip by as you pick at food you can’t seem to make a dent in and sip at the ice water sweating on the tabletop.

Your notes are getting erratic. Out of order. You’ll need to divide them up; reserve a book for the good, the bad, the thoughts knocking around your head, the sensitive information that could topple HYDRA over for good, and perhaps you’ll even need more books to sort specific parts of your life. It might be better to give your memories some structure, a solid timeline you can make sense of.

And then after that, you’ll be ready to begin researching. You’ll learn more about yourself and your life through the perception of others. Surely there’s something you’ve failed to uncover, and maybe somewhere, there are pictures you can find and keep for yourself.

You don’t have much. Even the clothes on your back aren’t truly yours, and you know in your bones you aren’t ready to be Barnes, but if you can find something that belonged to him, even the smallest thing, you’ll be grateful.

  
After all, you’ll have to coax him out somehow.

-

It’s nearly eight when you start the slow trek back to your hostel, and the streets are alive again. You sit on the stairs leading up to the hostel and you recognize one of the girls from the common area leaning on the metal banister, green hair and six piercings in either ear.

“Mówisz po polsku?” she asks.

You knit your brows together. “Chyba tak?” you say, unsure.

That makes her laugh. “Chcesz jeden?” she asks, waving her pack of cigarettes in front of you. “Nie jestem skąpy.”

Barnes was a smoker.  _ You _ were a smoker. You relished in the burn in the back of your throat, the smoke in your lungs, the smell of it in your nose, reminding you of the sight of a figure sat on the fire escape, the burning ember of a cigarette between her fingers.  _ Jas  _ _ andrê, Jamie,  _ your mother would say, waving the smoke away from you, as if that would stop you from picking up the habit.

You take the cigarette you’re offered, and let the girl light you up. The smoke fills your mouth, your lungs as you breathe in, warming you from the inside out. You nod at her as you pull away, and just then, a few other people come out and she disappears with them, meaning you might be able to sleep again tonight if yesterday was any indication of how this group is.

Between the growing dusk and the lamp posts, the cobblestoned street is cast in the sun's warm, dying light. The temperature drops. If circumstances were different, it could be nice. The air, the smoke in your throat, the distant chatter, the sound of a trumpet playing on a nearby street, it all feels incredibly familiar. Comforting, even.

You crush the burning butt of your smoke beneath your heel, and when you look up, Natalia is standing there.

She’s not wearing a wig this time, and her hair is open. She’s dressed plainly, enough to blend in, but she doesn’t seem to be masquerading as a tourist. “You know, for someone who roughed it on a cargo ship for two weeks,” she says. “You don’t look too bad.”

That, you don’t believe. You’re pale and drawn with deep, dark circles under your eyes. Your shaved head and stubbled cheeks only make you look more gaunt.

You watch her closely, suddenly paranoid that someone is going to notice the both of you, like an agent is lurking around the corner, waiting to strike.

She nods toward the street ahead, hands stuck in her pockets. “Walk with me?” she says.

Hesitantly, you rise to your feet.

-

The streets are bathed in warm, dim light. There are people almost everywhere and plenty step on your feet or slam into you, the drunk and the sober alike, and at some point, Natalia links your arms together, walking closer than before.   
  
“Felix said to send you his love,” you say after a while.

Natalia huffs through her nose. “He’s not a bad guy, you know,” she says. “He got you here in one piece.”   


“He never even asked me my name, you know,” you say, and though you don’t laugh, you know how bitter it would taste if you did. You aren’t sure what to think about being nobody. You wonder how long it will last.

Natalia shrugs. “He didn’t know mine for over a month,” she says. “Just called me Little Red. It’s not that it doesn’t matter, but the less he knows, the better. That’s how he describes it, at least.”   
  
“Not a bad strategy,” is all you say, and Natalia answers by dragging you through what looks like the door to an apartment building, but the sound of music instantly fills your ears, the smell of sweat and alcohol even more intense in the dim light. Your insides clench up. A bouncer lets you through and she guides you downward. It smells ancient, like dust and dampness, but surely that’s only noticeable to you.

The lights are dim and tinged red, casting a rosy glow over the entire room. It’s more of a cellar now that you really take a look at it, with stone walls and a bar on the far left, a few scattered tables and booths. There’s a band playing a song you can’t place and a few people dancing, some with the beat and some without it, but they look happy enough about it.

Just like that, you recall the race of your own heart and whiskey on your breath. You’ve been to clubs like this before, danced until your lungs burned and your feet ached. You rolled up your sleeves and unbuttoned your collar and let the music move through your body, pressed close to whoever your partner was that week.   
  
You doubt you have any rhythm, any musical bone left in your body. The band does nothing but make you feel miserable, picked clean of anything worthwhile as you follow Natalia to a booth, slide into the seat opposite her.

“Seems like you know this place,” you tell her, just loud enough to be heard over claps and cheers as the band begins a new song.

“Been here once or twice,” Natalia says, which could imply just about anything. She leans closer, arms crossed over the table. “Since I’m here, do you want me to give you a rundown on what you’ve missed?”

Your mouth flattens into a tight line, back ramrod straight before you mirror her. “Just tell me what’s important,” you say.   
  
“Depends on what you define as important,” Natalia shoots back, but she sobers up quickly. “Not much has changed on the surface. I told Fury I’m keeping an eye out for you and that I’m using some of my own sources to cover as much ground as I could. I was in London when you called, finishing up something of my own, and all anyone’s going to know is that I’ve gotten some tips or sightings or followed trails that turned out to be cold. I’ll say that if you don’t want to be found, you won’t be found, and I know that’s the truth about you, anyway. You’re used to looking over your shoulder, but if you keep your head down and keep a low profile, if you make yourself so unremarkable that no one bothers thinking about you for more than a minute or two, you’ll get off anyone’s radar for good.”   
  
“For good,” you echo and shake your head, weary. “I don’t know how possible that is.”   
  
“You’re the one who said you don’t want any more blood on your hands,” Natalia says. “All you have to do is keep your word.”

Low profile, head down. You can do that.

“I don’t know how long I should stay here,” you say. “It doesn’t…” you struggle to find the right word. “Sticking around might not end well.”   
  
“Play it by ear,” Natalia says with a shrug. “If you can blend in here, make it work. If not, you can pack up and leave. Where’s all the uncertainty coming from?”

Your gloved hands clench and unclench. A waitress comes to take your orders, Natalia orders two vodkas, but you shake your head. “Whiskey,” you correct, without even thinking about it.

“I’ve never seen you drink before,” Natalia says. “I was just ordering for show.”   
  
“It won’t do much, anyway,” you say, but God, you need the burn of it against your throat. If you could at least pretend you’re able to get drunk, that will be enough.

You watch the dance floor in front of you, eyes scanning over the mess of bodies, and then turn back to Natalia. “Is he still at the cabin?” you force yourself to ask. 

The week spent there feels like a fever dream now. A blip in time.

Natalia shakes her head. 

“He’s...staying with friends,” she says, and you hear the implication there. “His apartment got raided after the leak, and right now, the safest place he can be is where he is now.”

Meaning it was raided not long after you left. If you had stayed in the apartment any longer…your stomach turns over. You’re almost relieved when your whiskey is set in front of you, instantly grabbing for it.

“He wants to look for you,” Natalia continues. “Don’t think he doesn’t. I’m not gonna veer him off course, but if he gets too close, I’ll find a way to let you know in advance so you can pack up. Unless you want—”   
  
“No,” you cut in. “No, he can’t get dragged into my mess. That’s the reason I…” you grit your teeth, taking a slow, shaky breath. “That’s why I agreed to this.”

“I know your memory’s all over the place,” Natalia says. “But you should know that trying to clean other people’s messes is kind of his thing with a capital 'T'.” 

You take a slow sip from your glass and the burn of the whiskey tastes right, feels right as it mingles with the leftover taste of smoke. “I know it is,” you say after a while, rolling the glass in your hand, spinning it slowly on the table top. “But that doesn’t mean I have to let him.”   
  
“You know, now that I’m paying more attention, you’re more similar than you think,” Natalia says over the rim of her glass. “I wonder who had the Atlas complex in the first place. Him or you?”

“Wasn’t an Atlas complex,” you tell her without looking up, saying it half to yourself. “It was just how the cards got dealt out.”   
  
That feels right. That feels as true as the whiskey running down your throat and the taste of tobacco on your tongue. You broke your back working extra hours, Steve over-extended himself with commissions, your families following suit, working themselves to the bone because that was just how life was. 

It was being worried about ending up on the streets or not eating for a few days, and dreaming of a time when you wouldn’t worry at all. Yes, you were young. Yes, there was a time when a war was the least of your worries, but your life was far from easy.

For once, your memories don’t feel like you’re watching a movie reel of someone else’s life. Right now, they feel like they belong to you, if only for a moment.   


The band stops again, but soon begins a slower song, something made solely for swaying. You down the rest of your drink just as Natalia asks, “Wanna dance?”   
  
You arch a brow at her, then shake your head. “I can’t dance,” you say.

Natalia tilts her head. “You can’t or you won’t?”   
  
“Both,” you answer. “Mostly can’t.”   
  
“Depending on what I’ve heard, I beg to differ,” Natalia says, rising to her feet and holding out a hand. “Come on, старик. Don’t be a killjoy.”

You glare at it, dubious, but find yourself taking it, and letting yourself be led forward. Your hands freeze for just a moment before one goes to her side, your other hand linking with hers. “I told you I can’t,” you repeat, body feeling off-kilter in its attempts to sway with the music, trying to lead. “I’m a lost cause.”   
  
“I don’t know, you’re not too bad for a guy who hasn’t danced since the forties,” Natalia says, and knits her brows together when you make a face. “What? You think he never talked about you before?”   
  
That leaves you unsure of what to say, unsure of what to think. “I’m not who he remembers,” you mutter. “I can’t be that.”

“He knows that,” Natalia says, quiet and with conviction, pinning you in place with her gaze. “He does. You’re not what I remember either, if that helps at all. Hey, why don’t you give me a spin?”   
  
You huff, resigned. “If you crack your skull open, that’s your own fault,” you say, and do as she says, albeit stiffly and without much grace, before you bring her back in. It’s not as bad as you expected, but far from perfect. “Did you want proof he wasn’t lying?”   
  
Natalia flashes a faint smile, barely visible in the dim room. “No, I just wanted to cheer you up.”   
  
Somehow, that makes you feel even worse. You swallow thickly, adam’s apple bobbing in your throat. You almost pull away, but you force yourself to stay in place, still moving with her. “You didn’t have to,” you say.

“I know I didn’t,” Natalia says. “I’d like to think of us as friends. Friends cheer each other up when they have to.”   
  
Friendship is not something you ever really considered with Natalia, not after everything you’ve done to her. Odessa is still mostly a blank spot in your mind, and undoubtedly, there are other memories like this, ones you’ll never recover, but you can’t just erase the thought of it. You can’t erase putting a gun in her hand.

“I’ve known you your whole life,” you say. “And then some. I think I’d have to consider you a friend at this point.”   
  
“Wow, look at us,” Natalia says, bone dry. “Two peas in a pod.”

“Bosom buddies,” you say, and try to loosen your movements, pretending that the alcohol actually has an effect. “Who taught you how to dance?”   
  
Natalia shrugs. “I guess I just picked it up along the way,” she says. “According to someone I know, you were always pretty good.”   
  
“My ma taught me when I was a kid,” you say before you realize what you’re saying at all. “And then I got a grip on it myself. Taught my sister, tried to teach...” you trail off, but judging by Natalia’s expression, she’s already reading between the lines. “I don’t think it stuck.”   
  
“Nope,” Natalia says. “Doesn’t have any rhythm in his body, says he has two left feet.”   
  
“Always did,” you say, pausing for just a moment. “How long are you staying?”   
  
“Not much longer,” Natalia answers. “I’ll be out of here in the morning, but I don’t think I have any time to chat. I have some business in Washington to take care of, not exactly covert either. I’m sure you’ll see it all over TV soon.”

You ignore the clench of dread in your gut, the urge to look over your shoulder. The files on you were never on any computer, only ever copied onto paper, burned if necessary, or locked in a box in some forgotten base.

“We still have all the intel you gave us,” Natalia continues, adjusting her hand on your shoulder. “And soon enough, that’s all anyone’s gonna be interested in. It won’t matter who it came from. It’s in the right hands now, so you can do whatever you want. You’re still on the radar for now, but no one’s gonna be hunting you down unless you give them a reason.”   


“Doesn’t mean staying in one place is a good idea,” you say.   
  
“Flip a coin,” Natalia says, completely serious. “Heads, you leave, tails, you stick around.”

The song ends, quiet, and you both separate. You feel strangely better than before. “Want another drink?” Natalia asks.   
  
-

You don’t linger for much longer. You polish off two more glasses and Natalia matches you, just as unaffected. The air feels colder than before when you leave the cellar, and the streets are looking a little less busy, meaning everyone has gone somewhere, all smashed together in a club or a bar.   
  
“Whatever you do from here,” Natalia says as you near the hostel. She stops at the end of the street, hands in her pockets. “Get your hands on a phone. You can just turn it on when you need to get in touch, let me know if something changes.”   
  
You find yourself not wanting to leave, not wanting to lose the only sense of companionship you have, but you take a step back anyway, shoulders drawing up as a surprisingly cold wind stings at your face.

“You didn’t have to come,” you say.  _ You didn’t have to be kind, _ you want to add. “Or do anything.”   
  
The look on her face is something like amusement, lips curling up slightly. “I’m gonna take that as a thank you,” she says. “So, my pleasure. Maybe we’ll do it again sometime. I hear Berlin’s still a lot of fun if you know where to go.”   
  
You’re surprised to feel a bit of lightness in the core of your chest. “I’ll flip a coin and pick somewhere,” you say, and turn around, walking back toward the hostel.

“Don’t be a stranger,” Natalia calls.

You turn around to respond, but by the time you do, she’s already gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mówisz po polsku? = You speak Polish?
> 
> Chyba tak? = I think so?
> 
> Chcesz jeden? Nie jestem skąpy. = Do you want one? I'm not stingy.
> 
> Jas andrê = go inside
> 
> Старик = old man
> 
> if any translation sounds wrong, feel free to tell me! i'm using mostly google translate which sucks sometimes.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not sure if anyone actually minds shorter chapters, but i'm so used to them being over 7k that i'm just like...ugh. lmao. anyway, more to come throughout the day hopefully!

The common room is mostly empty, just a few American tourists smushed onto a sofa together, huddled over a laptop. You walk past them, past the reception desk, from which a woman snaps her fingers at you.

“Tu, da tu, vorbesc cu tine,” she says as you slowly turn. “Mai rezervi o noapte?”

For a moment, you think she’s speaking English, because you understand every word of it. You shove your hands in your pockets, thinking on it for a moment.

You aren’t sure how long you’re staying in Bucharest but you don’t want to sleep in the streets tonight if you have the option not to. You’re just unsure of how long your funds will last.   
  
“I can’t afford it,” you respond in Romanian, before you truly realize you’re doing it at all. Languages are a strange thing to you, so many at the tip of your tongue yet they all scatter around in your mind unless you decide to use them. “Not for long.”   
  
You take a step closer as she leans back in her chair to look at you, dark eyes flicking over your face. She’s older, with stripes of grey streaking through her black hair. “You look like you’re built to work,” she says. “If you stay, you can work the desk during night shifts, answer phones and help guests check in. You’ll clean up any messes in the dorms and the common room, sweep any junk outside. Do that and you can have a room to yourself.”   
  
“For how long?” you ask.

“Only a few weeks,” the woman says. “Until I find someone permanent.”

It almost feels too easy. It  _ is _ too easy. You’re not built for such menial tasks, or maybe you are. Maybe you can learn. You need to stay somewhere, after all. You run your hand over the back of your neck, think of the alternative, which is sleeping in the cold and risking your belongings, your money being stolen and then truly being down on your luck.

You nod. “Can I think about it?”

The phone begins to ring and the woman raises a finger at you to say  _ wait  _ before she answers and puts the caller on hold. “I’m Nadine,” she says. “We’ll talk more about it tomorrow morning.”

“Yasha,” you blurt out.

She nods and your conversation seems to end with her picking up the phone once more. You stand there, watching for only a moment before you walk toward the lockers, grabbing your bag before you’re back in the dorm.

-

You shouldn’t stay.   
  
If you stay too long, you’re bound to be seen by someone you’d rather avoid or run headfirst into trouble if it turns out HYDRA has any ties nearby, but you can’t recall that being the case. The last time you were in Romania must have been decades ago.   
  
You huddle on your bunk, relieved that the room is empty once more. You count your money. American and Canadian dollars, euros, rubles, lei, pounds. It can all be exchanged, if needed. Wherever you choose to go, you’ll be able to survive on it. You just can’t burn it all on lodging unless you find somewhere to live. The credit cards are useless to you right now, and will likely continue to be. You have identification and cash to live off of for now.

A coin clatters to the floor and you pick it up.   
  
It’s a dime. You were given change in DC weeks ago, and you must have shoved it into a pocket, maybe from your stolen jacket. It must have slipped out in your bag.

You hold it between your thumb and finger, taking a slow breath, and then you flip it, catching it on the back of your right hand.

It lands on tails.

-

You store your things away and scrub your hands over your face. A few weeks, Nadine said. A few weeks of work and you can use that time to get your head together, to find your footing well enough to decide where you’ll go from here.

-

The next morning, you go downstairs, still groggy from your sleepless night, and find Nadine at the desk.

“I’ll stay,” you tell her. “As long as you need me to.”   
  
No one will look twice at you here. No one will come here at all unless they know what they’re looking for, and even then, they’re looking for a scraggly thing wandering the streets, ducking around corners and looking over his shoulder. They underestimate just how well you can blend in when you put the effort in. It’s what you were taught, in so many ways and for so many reasons.

Nadine drums her fingers on the desk, leaning over it for a moment, before she says, “Come, I’ll show you what to do.”   


-

Nadine leads you to your new room, and it’s as sparsely decorated as the shared one, plain walls with neat bed sheets and a clock on the wall. The only difference is that you’ll be able to find some peace and quiet this time around. You have your own bathroom, a desk in the far corner of the room, a set of drawers, and a small closet.

Despite this, the room isn’t spacious by any means, but you don’t mind it so much. Beggars can’t be choosers and this is more than enough. It’s more than you could ever ask for.

“What do you think?” Nadine asks as you set your bag on the bed.

You take another look around, then meet her eyes. “It’s good,” you say. “Thank you.”   
  
From there, she shows you the ropes. You’ll take the night shift at the desk, answering phone calls and such, enforcing any rules if need be. You’ll have to clear the common room by midnight, clean up any messes left behind. You’ll be sent on a grocery run to restock the kitchen once a week. In exchange, you get your room along with breakfast and dinner.

You start tonight, meaning you have time for one errand.

It takes time to find a store that doesn’t charge too much money, but soon enough, you get your hands on a prepaid phone. You don’t set it up, just keep it in your desk drawer case you need it. Payphones are safer, yes, but if you need to move or need to get in touch with Natalia quickly, you can’t rely on them.

Besides, you don’t need to move yet. You’ll be here for at least a month, maybe longer, and for now, you can focus on blending in. Surely, no one will be on the lookout for the Winter Soldier in a hostel, sweeping up old food and answering phone calls.   
  
It just might be the best cover you have right now.

-

You find yourself being busier than you expect.   
  
There are leaky sinks to fix and toilets to unclog, lightbulbs to screw in and fights to break up. You kill a spider as big as your face in one of the dorms. You buy groceries and stock the kitchen. You water Nadine’s plants. She uses you being multilingual to her advantage, and it turns out that yelling  _ if you don’t quiet down, I’m calling the police _ is more effective in whatever language the guests speak.

To your surprise, all of these tasks come to you easily. It’s not as if you’ve never worked a day in your life. Your hands and your body are used to it, and some small part of your mind is, too. It only begins to take center stage more often as the weeks go on, and by the time your shifts are over, you end each night with tumbling into a heavy, dreamless sleep.

You begin to like Bucharest. You like Old Town and you want to explore the rest of the city, map it all out with your feet one day, feel the late spring sun soak into your skin. You feel it hit the back of your head as it rises, easing the ache there as you duck over a bowl of cereal and a newspaper in the common room. Your hair is beginning to grow in, just a little; in a short, tufted mess that’s beginning to grow wavy at the roots. You find yourself wearing a hat more often than not, making sure to stay on top of shaving so you at least look like you belong at the front desk.

You aren’t sure when you started looking at apartment listings exactly, but if you’re going to stay a while, you’ll need somewhere to live. If you have somewhere to live, you’ll need a job. The city is by no means small, meaning that the more time passes, the more you’ll be able to slip into anonymity, blend in with everyone else.

So, why should you leave? Why should you risk exposing yourself if you’ve been able to stay under the radar for weeks already?

You take your pen, circling the cheapest listing, and finish off your breakfast. It won’t be long until you have to do a sweep of the dorms when someone checks out. You hope you don’t find anything you’d rather not see, or clean up.

Funny how that’s your only worry. You’ll take that as a good sign.

-

Two weeks before your time at the hostel ends, you sit at a payphone, smoking a cigarette from a pack you bought impulsively down to the butt before you call the number from the paper.   
  
The line rings, on and on, before a man answers. He sounds older, all but uninterested in your call.

Your voice sticks in your throat, just for a moment but then you finally manage to ask, “Is the listing from the paper still available?”

In the end, it is.

You have to take the train to get there, and the way it rumbles beneath your feet, the way the passengers file on and off, is so familiar, so soothing, you almost forget where you are. 

No one spares you a second look and you remind yourself, not for the first time, that everyone with the clearance to see your face is dead or imprisoned, and that you’re only keeping an eye out for SHIELD, for someone who’s been sent out to look for you, but you know how to hide. 

You’ve remembered how to hide in a way that you’ll never be found, and you have a feeling you’ll be able to do it without HYDRA on your tail now.

-

The building is tall, surely with plenty of units. It’s not run-down, just older. You can make that work. Something about the ultra-modern is off-putting to you.

The landlord, Emil, lives in the building and you have to go straight to his apartment to inquire about the newspaper listing. He doesn’t press you for much, aside from your name and identification. He looks to be the type of man who judges people by the way they look rather than what’s on paper, and while he doesn’t seem to like you too much, he doesn’t seem to hate you either.

He says you can move in when you lose your current quarters. Says you can pay your rent in cash. 

Of course, you agree. The less of a traceable trail you have, the better.

You’re shown the apartment and find that it’s one single room, stripped bare save for the small sofa pressed back against the wall, the clunky old television, and the appliances. It’s a little run down and smells like something died in the walls, but you think you can get rid of the smell as long as you leave the window open during the day, let it air out for a while. You’ll buy traps and whatever else you need to solve a pest problem on your own, because this is yours. It’s not a street corner or a cot in a hostel. 

It’s  _ yours _ , the way your body is yours, and suddenly, you have something else to take care of.

-

You soon find yourself doing the last of your duties and saying goodbye to Nadine. You got along with her well, evidently, because she tells you to stop by and say hello if you ever find yourself in the area. 

A part of you regrets leaving, but it’s better, keeping connections to a minimum. If you’re somehow caught, you’d rather keep the casualties to a minimum. You don’t want anyone getting entangled in your messes.

From there, you get to work.   
  
You exchange your money, meaning that belongs to you, too now. No HYDRA fingerprints on any of it.  You buy the essentials you need and use them to clean up as well as you can. You wipe the dust and dirt off of everything, scrub the kitchen, vacuum the carpet. The decor is outdated. Faded green walls and scratchy brown carpet that desperately needs to be cleaned. Old yellowed linoleum and creaky wooden cabinets. 

The apartment and truthfully, the building itself, looks like it hasn’t been touched for at least thirty years, but at least it won’t burn a hole through your funds. 

What will you do if they run out, you wonder? You can’t steal, you know better than that. If you get caught, you’ll be arrested, and you can’t attract attention. 

If you don’t want to steal and you don’t want to attract attention to yourself, you’ll need a job.

Definitely a job. Something with easy pay. Labor, maybe. Bussing tables and mopping floors. You’ll have to find somewhere desperate for help, even looking to take someone like you on. Most people don’t like the look of you, you’ve noticed. They avoid your eye or they’re forcefully polite in a way that will make you leave them be. You think you scare them, even when you try to be civil. You’d rather not scare people. 

You don’t want anyone to look at you as if you have a gun pointed between their eyes or a knife to their throat. You never want to be looked at with fear again.

-

Your sofa folds out into a bed, so you have that solved. You buy a pillow and sheets. You buy a red ceramic mug, which you chose after being torn between white and black for too long. 

You wonder if you had a favorite, or at least preferred, color before. Was it red then, too? Something tells you it wasn’t. It doesn’t feel familiar to you. When you try to wrack your brain for the answer, it says  _ blue _ . 

Blue, blue, blue. A bright, cloudless sky in the summer, or the taste of the ocean on your tongue when you came up to the surface for air. The color of the glaciers in Greenland when the sun hit them just right. A favorite shirt. The stub of a movie ticket, maybe more than one. It feels like calm. It’s pleasantly cool and forgiving.

Red is a color you know. It’s a color you’re far too familiar with, but you’re trying not to associate it with the other parts of your past. 

Red doesn’t have to be a splatter of blood on a wall, or the star on your bicep. Red can be the taste of lipstick rubbed on your mouth or cheeks flushed with happiness, with lust, with embarrassment, with intoxication. It can be a neon sign on a busy street. The bouquet of roses Rebecca held on her wedding day, or the red ribbon Ma had put on her wrist when she’d gotten too sick one winter, when you were too young to understand why she wore it at all or why you wore one, too, until it loosened and fell off, surely lost in some long forgotten schoolyard. 

Red is also the fiery flash of Natalia’s hair, her braid coming apart in one of the rare moments away from her handlers, during a deep cover mission in Vienna where you masqueraded as a father and daughter.

She couldn’t have been more than ten years old. You alternated between watching her run full-speed through the Christmas market and watching one of the many targets you were sent after, the sound of spitfire German grating in your ears and against your throat when you spoke it. You couldn’t understand what it was about the language that made your skin crawl, not at first, but that’s not what you want to think about.

You watched her run after little groups of pigeons with other children, kicking up dirt and staining the smart shoes picked specifically by her handlers, matching her dove grey coat and hat, lined in expensive white fur. It was all you could do. You were both prisoners then, and the intent to return to base was too deeply ingrained in your minds, even when your body told you to run, to slip into the crowds with her and not look back.   
  
Something told you to let her have that moment. She found you in the crowds eventually, moments after you slipped ricin into your target’s cup of mulled wine, another flash of deep red, and when she asked where the two of you were meant to go next, you had told her  _ nowhere _ when you were in fact meant to trail your target to a hotel, but she didn’t know that. You hadn’t told her what she was brought along for, spared her of it, and let her see the rest of the market.

You don’t regret killing your target. Even now. You don’t regret changing the trajectory of the mission. The punishment afterward meant nothing. You took it. You still feel the throb of your pounding, bleeding face until someone said to stop, to say you had done well after all. 

The man’s death had been ruled as illness, due to how slow the poison overtook his system. You were spared afterward, but that didn’t matter.  _ You _ didn’t matter. Your handlers saw your change of plans as quick thinking, but to you, it was calculated. It was to keep Natalia out of harm’s way, if only for a moment.

It was all you could give her.   
  
In a way, it’s not a bad memory, but it still leaves long held anger burning hot in the core of you. You try to tell yourself there would have been no way to save any of the girls on your own. That you would have been caught and your punishment would be their deaths, and eventually your own for dismantling everything that was so carefully built.

So, maybe red is a confusing color, after all,  but still, the mug is the only colorful thing in the cabinet. It stands out next to the white bowl and two identical dishes, The dull silver cutlery. You have a new pot and pan sits on the stovetop. 

All of a sudden, you have possessions. Everything in here belongs to you, and isn’t that something?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes bucky!! do what you gotta do!! we believe in you!!
> 
> Tu, da tu, vorbesc cu tine = You, yes, you I'm talking to you
> 
> Mai rezervi o noapte? = Are you booking another night?


	18. Chapter 18

You don’t sleep the first night.

Every single noise keeps you awake. Footsteps stomping above you, a baby crying next door, a dog barking down the hall. The average person would be irritated, but able to find some sort of rest. You, on the other hand, feel it grating at your eardrums, and you toss and turn for hours until you finally fall asleep, still half-aware of all the noise.

The next morning, you go to the market across the street. You buy eggs and milk and bread and coffee because it feels like the right thing to do. You start buying a newspaper every morning because it feels like the right thing to do. You read it on your lumpy sofa and you drink coffee that’s just a little too bitter, but better than before. Better than the batch you all but burnt the first time since you underestimated the stove (the eggs were burnt, too), but the taste doesn’t bother you. It doesn’t bother you at all.

It feels good, if you’re being honest with yourself. It feels good to know that even someone like you can make foolish mistakes. Oversleeping or spilling milk on the counter, leaving the window open or burning your tongue on coffee. 

It makes you feel human.

-

If you’re going to be human, you have to stop looking over your shoulder. You have to stop living like every moment is your last.

Safety, survival, staying far away from any trouble that might come your way is a priority, but you don’t want to spiral into blackness because of it. You can’t live like you’re on the run for the rest of your life, and right now, you think you might want to stop running for good.

So, you remain vigilant, but stop looking over your shoulder. You try not to sit in a spot where you can observe every entrance, though that feels nearly impossible to do. You don’t treat people with suspicion unless your gut says otherwise. You can trust your instincts, and when they tell you there’s no threat to be found, you listen.

In order to be like everyone else, you have to work, and so you find odd jobs, like you must have before. You assemble shelves and paint houses with a skill you didn’t know you had. You clean the grime off of cars and wax them until they’re gleaming and get cash in your hands. You know you can’t just sit around doing nothing. You weren’t made for that. You were never made for that.

-

For a long time, you don’t give anyone your name. 

No one seems to ask, anyway, since they’re simply too relieved that you’ve done whatever they’re paying you for, but when the woman upstairs, Elena — _ mid-40s, smiles a lot, says hello to you when she sees you _ — says she hasn’t once heard your name, and as she heads downstairs, you wrack your faulty brain and find the answer.

“Yasha,” you say, feeling short of breath without knowing why. You told Nadine that was your name, so why would it bother you now? “My name is Yasha.”

Your landlord calls you  _ Domnul Yushkov _ , but you are not Nikita Yushkov. You’re not Adrian Gorski or Laszlo Vastag or any of the names on your passports. 

Most importantly, you are not James Buchanan Barnes. Not yet. You’re not ready to be him, and at this moment, you don’t think you could be him if you tried.

Here and now, you’re Yasha. That’s who you’ve been to everyone upon leaving the cabin, and it feels more right than any other name living in your head.

-

One night, you impulsively turn on your burner phone and set it up. You have only one contact, and you type out a text reading  _ I think I’m staying here for a while. _

Natalia’s response comes almost immediately— _ keep a low profile and stay safe. _

You’re tempted to ask when you should get in touch next, but it’s better you end contact there. You shut your phone off and find yourself staring at the television for a while, not quite watching it, but listening to it.   
  
You quickly realize you’ve never used one before. It’s almost funny. Maybe you can think of it as giving Barnes a gift, showing him something he’s never seen before.

-

After three months of simple labor, you find something real. People know your face now. Your neighbors wave at you when you pass by, and so do the old woman and her husband behind the counter at the market. No one seems to think of you as some stranger, some intruder anymore. 

Now, you ring people up at a convenience store. You force yourself to smile. You say  _ să aveți o zi bună  _ when people walk out, and when the drunks come in late at night, when they piss or throw up on the floor before they walk out, you mop it up and mutter  _ pe kiro baxt.  _ The first time your boss, Cristian, hears it, he throws his head back and laughs.

“Nu mi-ai spus niciodată că ești țigan, Yasha!” he says, and grabs you around the shoulders, slaps them hard. You thought you’d flinch, but you’ve already grown used to Cristian. Know he means no harm, even when being found out makes you tense up. “Ni daral, pral. Me sem i rom.”

Still, the words make your stomach drop out, just for a moment, but you tug yourself out of the memory. Zola and Lange are dead, long dead. You almost wish that wasn’t the case, just so you could tear them apart the same way they tore you apart.

You pat Cristian on the back, feeling a slight smile tug at your mouth despite the clench in your chest, and then you get back to work.

-

Your nightmares are hard to wrap your head around, these days. They’re a combination of memories and fantasies, of guns to your head or the dark, steel halo of The Chair pressing against your temples, or being strapped to Zola’s table again, mumbling words you can’t make sense of as Steve walks right past you, searching the room before leaving you behind.

The gasp that rips out of you almost turns to a scream, but you have half a mind to shove your fist in your mouth. You know the neighbors next door have a baby, and the last thing you want is to wake her and hear the constant crying start all over again, all but shaking the thin walls.

So, you swallow it all down, press your pillow over your face until the storm passes

You still wear Steve’s clothes. You aren’t sure why, since you’ve bought things that fit you better since you moved into your apartment, and besides, it’s not as if you’re wearing them for any other reason than it’s what you grabbed without thinking. The shirt is soft and almost threadbare, and has long since lost the scent it originally had. You’ve washed it and worn it like you did your other clothes, made it smell like you and erased him as much as possible, but who wore the shirt away in the first place? Not you. It feels like it’s been washed and worn many times before now, old and comfortable.   


It must have been a favorite of his. You aren’t sure if that makes you feel better or worse.

You wonder what would happen if he somehow found you now. Would he say anything? Would he ask you to come with him to wherever he was going? Would he leave you be, never tell SHIELD or Fury a single word about it?

He would be on your side. You can’t imagine that not being the case.  _ Because he always has been _ , your mind seems to whisper, but a small, betraying part of you, still afraid to let the full memory of him in, is trying to fight back, to remain in its place in the dark, but you can’t stay there anymore. You can’t hide from the truth any longer, even if you can still barely make sense of it.

It’s hard to let the memories slip in, even though you want them. You want them desperately.

Memories were never something to be held onto, not until now. They weren’t meant to be binding, or to give you clarity. The only clarity you ever knew was the blank slate The Chair left you with, the sedatives pumping through you before you were sealed away again, but The Chair was destroyed by none other than you. There’s no cryo tanks or handlers in Bucharest, and no more blood on your hands.

If you can sate the Winter Soldier, if you can force him to make peace with being Barnes, then you have a chance, even if your body and mind try to fight you every step of the way. You’ll make both understand, and in turn, make yourself understand.

-

You can’t afford to eat out, so you try to cook your own meals. You save your money. You keep a separate notebook to keep track of it. You have a budget. You keep rent money stashed in an envelope. You drop change and loose bills into a coffee can, and stash your real savings in a sock.

It feels good. Feels like the right thing to do.

So, you cook. You become good at cooking. You only make what you can afford, and at first it tastes like sawdust in your mouth, starts off acrid and burnt, but it improves, and then you don’t mind it so much.

You know you’re limited on options, just like you were before, but you’re relearning your hand at it. Learning new things, too. New flavors, things you learn you like now that you can afford them, and things you hate. Old flavors and new alike. You learn you hate the smell and the taste of coconut, and that makes you remember boiling in the sun in Guadalcanal, eating nothing but the flesh and drinking the earthy, sweet juice inside when your rations were running low. You hate fish, and know you did before, too, but can’t place why (you couldn’t place it then, either). 

A new century also means new food, so now you hate the way bananas taste—sandy and bland against your tongue, and utterly unlike the sweet, almost creamy taste you  _ know _ they once had, the scent of it pronounced unlike this one, which smells like almost nothing at all. 

You learn that you hate wheat bread, soy milk, white chocolate, and pumpkin. The texture of mushrooms makes you nauseous, so you avoid them at all costs.

All these revelations leave you buying another notebook, making lists of preferences and dislikes. You mark which are old and which are new. You scribble down recipes, both new and old, and you remember when Ma used to write hers down. Remember Sarah Rogers doing the same in her neat, slanted writing. You remember her apple cake with a burst of clarity, and the chocolate cake Ma and Rebecca made on your birthday almost every year, sickeningly sugary, but you looked forward to, and then eventually returning the favor to Rebecca only a few months later with whatever you could get your hands on. 

You remember your ma’s recipes. You remember helping her with them, cutting carrots and onions as quickly as she did, or wrapping leaves of cabbage, fingers growing pruned with each one. Being as young as ten and going with her to the butcher, getting a good piece of meat you could afford. Sometimes, you’d go alone since the butcher and his wife were a little nicer then, but that only worked when you were short enough to barely see over the counter.

You remember a bakery and kneading dough until your arms burned and ached, even in your sleep, giving you a new bulk to your shoulders. You remember flour caught under your fingernails. Hauling bags of it. The sweetness of a rugelach on your tongue.

Coffee swirling with milk as a blue dawn streamed into the windows, your boots tight on your feet. A piece of toast crunching between your teeth, scrambled eggs in butter, eaten hastily before you peeled out into the blistering heat for the day, broke your back hauling boxes and itching for a cigarette all the while. Itching for the burn in your throat, the smoke in your lungs, the smell of it clinging to your fingers, to your coat.

Smells and sounds, tastes and touches, they all come together, and paint a picture in front of you. Sketch it in charcoal, captivating even without a drop of color, or as vivid and textured, as layered and dimensional, as an oil painting. 

It all comes together, and clutches at you like a pair of arms, trying to squeeze out the poison forced into your veins. Trying to pull you from the edge of a cliff, trying to clutch you close and whisper  _ come home, it’s time for you to come home _ .

-

You want to go home now.

You want to go home desperately, and you ache with it, but you’re not ready to go to New York. You can’t face it. You can’t face the possibility of all you remember being gone, or the possibility of having left anyone, anything behind.

Home means  _ home. _ You want to flop down onto the rickety sofa in your apartment, or the big old armchair at your Ma’s, legs draped over the arm of it, or go to the drugstore and suck down a chocolate soda after your shift ended at the dinette or the docks, pockets a little heavier than before.

You find yourself attempting to cook again that night, simmering chunks of pork loin and onion, celery and cabbage and rice in oil and a thick tomato sauce, filling the apartment up with the smell and leaving your stomach gnawing at itself in a way that doesn’t feel like the desolate sort of hunger you associate with the past, but rather, a warmth, one that makes you want to shut your eyes and breathe in. 

Maybe if you wait long enough before opening your eyes, you’ll see Rebecca kneeling in front of the coffee table with her Raggedy Ann and one of many old dime store soldiers that once belonged to you, still young enough to have her messy, curly braids.

You test it straight off the serving spoon and for a moment, you think you’re choking, that your nose is running and your eyes are watering, leaking over because you made it too spicy and ruined the pot, but the ache in your chest says differently  _ because this is your Ma’s recipe, _ this is her food and this is the recipe she taught you and it’s all you have left of her.

Your limbs are rubbery and useless, heart pounding, but you force yourself to continue, force yourself to keep going until you get it exactly right.

-

When the days get colder, when you’re not sweating under your collar, you find that you like going to the market across the street from your building.   
  
You like the simplicity of it. You like talking to the old woman and her husband behind the counter. They ask how you are, and you ask the same. You buy fruit and vegetables, a carton of eggs, milk in a glass bottle. Sometimes, you buy a candy bar from the box at the register. You let the sun hit your face, and allow yourself to enjoy iy, the heat soaking into your skin.

_ Maybe you’re not what they made you to be _ , you think. 

Maybe you deserve good things.

You deserve to move forward, and not be ruled by fear and distrust. You deserve cool, clean air on your skin. Deserve to sleep through the night and eat well, deserve the sweet heat of coffee on your tongue and the smoke you’ve begun to crave not long after.

You deserve more than the hand you were dealt. You deserve to heal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Să aveți o zi bună = Have a nice day
> 
> Pe kiro baxt = the literal translation is 'on your luck', but saying this is offensive since it means wishing bad luck on someone. some people, like bucky in the scene he says it, say it with the same energy as saying something like 'eat shit' or 'up yours' despite it not meaning that at all. translations are funny that way. i never explained any of this until now, though haha
> 
> Nu mi-ai spus niciodată că ești țigan, Yasha! = You never told me you were a gypsy, Yasha! 
> 
> Ni daral, pral. Me sem i rom. = Don't be afraid, brother. I'm Roma, too.
> 
> (also this goes without saying, but if you're not romani, please do not use the g slur. ever. for any reason.)
> 
> another thing, bucky was cooking filling for sarma/cabbage rolls, which i know isn't how most people do it especially if you live outside the US, but romani-americans make it as described :D most, my family included, sometimes serve the filling as an entree or a side dish since it's less time consuming than wrapping it in cabbage and simmering it which can sometimes take Forever, and that's exactly what bucky was doing.


	19. Chapter 19

Winter comes and goes, and brings a new year with it. You don’t celebrate Christmas or New Years’, since you have no one to celebrate with and feel strangely low as January slips in, a mood that refuses to budge. It’s new and leaves you feeling cold and slick inside, leaves you in a fog at work, leaves you in a deeper fog when you’re at home.

_ Home _ . Somewhere along the way, this became home rather than  _ the apartment, _ and for a while, that’s enough to pull you from the hole you’d fallen into, enough to make you drag yourself out as the snow begins to melt, as the wet chill inside of you recedes.

-

You have a calendar on your wall. It covers a damp stain. The months are assigned to planets and nebulae, and March’s page is the crab nebula, a burst of color and light.

According to it, today is the 10th. Today is your birthday.

Cristian squeezes it out of you somehow, while you’re helping him with the last of the day’s shipments. He’s very touchy but it doesn’t bother you anymore. You know it’s just how he is. He claps everyone on the shoulders or their arms or grabs people by their face, hugs them or slings his arm around their shoulders. You’ve grown used to it, and even manage to smile at him when he does it.

He slaps you hard on the back and messes up your hair—which has nearly a year’s worth of growth now, curling just below your ears and requiring pomade to stay in place—after he leads you out of the store, locking the door for the evening. “Yasha’s birthday!” he says with a grin. He doesn’t look old. Somewhere in his thirties. No older and no younger. “How old are you now, hm?”

How many candles would really suffice, you wonder? Ninety-seven? Twenty-eight? Forty?

“Thirty,” you lie, and hope it’s good enough. In the past seven decades, you’ve aged only a few years. Gained lines around your eyes and the corners of your mouth, but nothing substantial. Nothing that would prove you can actually age the way anyone else would. You almost hope you can. “But, listen, Cristian. You know, you don’t have to—”   
  
“Ah-ah.” Cristian makes a zipping motion across his mouth. “We’re friends, Yasha, and I want to take my friend out for his birthday.”

It’s funny to think about, since you haven’t made friendship a priority by any means. You haven’t even  _ thought _ about making any, but now, you can feel your lips curling into something like a smile when Cristian meets your eyes.

He says,  “But baxt sastimos.” and snaps you from your thoughts.  “Ekšêl maj  berš, muro pral.”

A laugh punches out of you, and it’s a little bitter. You dig your lighter from your pocket, pull your cigarette from behind your ear, the same way you keep a pen. You don’t think you did this before. It’s new. Nice, to have a new trait and not have to remember an old one. “Feels like I’ve already lived that long,” you say as you light up.

“Oh, don’t sound so miserable,” Cristian chuckles, and you follow him down the block, toward the areas you tend not to frequent. “You won’t be that way for long once you have something to drink.”

It’s busier down here. Livelier. There are restaurants and bars and more people than there are on your street. There are couples and friends and people walking alone, and Cristian leads you into one of the bars after a few minutes. It’s dim and busy, smelling like liquor and sweat, something like piss and stale peanuts.

“I knew a place like this,” you say over the sudden swell of noise, letting Cristian lead you to the bar. _It was called_ _Odie’s_ , you think to yourself. “Back home.”

Cristian raises dark brows at you. You never mention anything about your life, especially not to him. “So, it’s familiar, yeah?” he says. Your chest twinges. “Where are you from?”

It had to come up eventually. Cristian is a nice guy, not prying, but knowing someone for a while and knowing absolutely nothing about them must be strange, especially since you know more about him (thirty-seven, grew up in Sibiu, widowed with twin daughters—Bianca and Marta) than he knows about you.   
  
The exhibit in DC, the biography you combed through at the library, the goddamn  _ Wikipedia page _ , all say you were born in Brooklyn, so it must be true. “New York,” you answer distantly. “But I haven’t been back in years.”   
  
“Any family there?” Cristian asks. The bartender comes up. Cristian orders a pint of beer, and you order a whiskey. Cristian tells the bartender to give you something expensive, and you almost protest, but it’s your birthday, isn’t? You deserve a decent drink.

Your glass is slid in front of you, and you take a slow sip before you speak. It burns sweetly in your throat, runs down smooth and warms you from the inside out. “My mother, my sister, but I don’t know if they’re still around,” you say, and then your breath almost catches. “A niece, Vera, but I only ever saw baby pictures of her. I never got to meet her.”

“Did you lose touch with them?” Cristian asks, and he’s not...he’s not prying, he’s just  _ asking _ . He does seem to like you, and him being concerned is normal.

“Wasn’t my choice, or theirs,” you say, and know in your bones, that it’s the truth. “They’re both...they passed, anyway, and I couldn’t get them into the trouble I was in.”

You—

_ You got out. _

You escaped another time, didn’t you?

Yes.  _ Yes _ . Long before the Red Room. You killed the guards holding you. Snapped their necks before you got your way onto on a Greyhound in ‘76. Stole clothes and lived in a flophouse in Adelphi for two weeks, eating in soup kitchens and scouring phone books, checking under  _ B _ , checking under  _ P _ , until you finally found an address in Greenpoint, and stood across the street, watching the brownstone, hidden as much as possible. No one paid you any mind.

Or, so you thought.

On the third day, you gave up. You walked away, but there was a girl stalking toward you with dark hair down to her hips, wearing a leather jacket that looked too big for her and blue jeans, eyes identical to yours flashing as she shouted  _ hey, you! Yeah, baby-killer, I’m talking to you! Get the fuck off my street, or I’m calling the cops, you hear me! Now go! _

You knew it was Vera. You didn’t even bother to ask. You didn’t see... _ Christ _ , you didn’t see Rebecca, or Ma, or hell, even Scott, just Vera. All piss and vinegar, and as pretty as Rebecca was. Just like you thought she’d be. You wonder what happened to her, if she’s passed away too or if she has her own life, had kids of her own. 

Either way, you don’t want to know. 

You turned to face her, lifted your hands, shaky with adrenaline, with exhaustion, to show you wouldn’t hurt her, and backed away until she gave up and stormed off.

You were found that same night. Dragged back to your handlers in a drugged heap, and you blearily thought it was for the best. You couldn’t endanger Vera or Becca or anyone else. By then, you’d been dead to the rest of the world for more than twenty years. Dead and buried somewhere, just like you thought Steve was.

“Yasha?” Cristian asks, and you almost startle at the sound of his voice, whip around to face him. His hand is tight and warm on your shoulder. “Are you alright? God, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No,” you grit out, scrub your hands over your face. Your eyes are wet, but your face , luckily, is not. You motion to the bartender for a refill. “No, it’s...it’s okay. Just forget it. Water under the bridge.”

“Just listen to me for a moment and then we’ll stop talking about it for good,” Cristian says, serious for once, dark eyes boring into you. “You’re running from something. I see it, and I won’t ask what it is because you must have a good reason. You do, don’t you?”

You feel stripped raw, like you’re letting Cristian see too much, but he already seems to have your number in his own way. The world has grown too chaotic to simply assume the best of people. “Yes,” you say despite the growing dread in the pit of your stomach. You nod, as if to confirm that fact to yourself. You’re doing the right thing. You have to be.

“Then listen to me,” Cristian says. “I haven’t had an easy life myself, and thinking about the past still turns my stomach. It still makes me angry, it still hurts, but I have my daughters. I have my brothers, my friends, and they’ve helped me. We’ve helped each other. You must have someone at home waiting for you, I’m sure you do. If you had no choice but to leave, they wouldn’t turn you away if you decided to come back.”   
  
“I don’t think I can do that,” you say. “It’s been—” your laugh feels like a shard of glass caught in your throat. “It’s selfish if I go now. Not worth it.”

Cristian rolls his eyes, shaking his head. “ Če dinlo san,” he says. “That can’t be true.”

“It is,” you snap back. “I couldn’t go back even if I wanted to.”   
  
“You don’t want to go home? Or are you afraid to?” Cristian asks point blank.

A muscle in your jaw pulses, and you can feel yourself tensing, but you force it down. You don’t have any friends. Not now. You can’t afford to lose any, and you can’t afford to lose your job. The bartender slides your second whiskey in front of you and you take a swallow of it. “I don’t know,” you say, and huff. Shake your head. “I don’t—” you try to find the words, eyes on the bar, on the rings other glasses have left. “I want to, and there is someone back home, but I’m...I’m not who I was before. I don’t want to go in there and be expected to be someone I’m not. I don’t know  _ how _ to be him anymore.”

It all barrels out before you can stop it, but it’s the truth. 

You don’t know the first thing about being Bucky Barnes, and even with your memories returning, you still feel like you’re missing something important. Missing the key to whatever you’re looking for.

“Whoever it is, I doubt they’re what you remember either,” Cristian says. “Have you considered that yet?”

As much as you don’t want to admit it, he’s right.

Cristian is right. Maybe one day, you’ll learn to swallow down whatever it is holding you back—fear, pride, self-pity—and go back to America, go back to Brooklyn and make sense of the life that was stolen away from you.

“But for  _ now _ ,” Cristian says, grinning crookedly before he orders two shots of vodka. When they’re slid in front of you, he clinks his glass against yours. “Let’s spend your birthday doing something fun. Cheer you up a bit.”

-

Cristian drinks himself stupid. 

You drink (a lot), but to no avail. In another life, you’d be as drunk as he is. You held your liquor well enough, back in the day, but it always affected your motor skills. You remember wandering silent, snowy streets, drunk as a skunk and walking home in a jagged line. You were breathing in blissfully cool air, dazed and foolishly happy, pockets stuffed full of cash that meant everything in the world at the time.

The memory cuts like a knife, and it takes too much effort to shove down. It’s difficult, picturing yourself, of all people, feeling so at ease.

Cristian slides from his stool on shaky legs at that moment, and it’s a welcome distraction. “I can make it, I can make it. I’ve done it before,” he chuckles when you try to help him, try to pull his arm around your shoulders. He takes a sloppy step backward, pointing at you with a grin. “I’ll go home and try to sleep this off. Find yourself a girl, Yasha! Don’t spend your birthday alone!”

You trust him, so you let him go, staying inside. It hasn’t been long since you got here, and you’re itching under your skin.

You liked girls. You liked them a lot, but you can’t remember anyone specific, anyone who truly stood out. Just flashes of pretty faces. Blond hair and a tight blue dress. Dark curls and some flowery, clean perfume, the taste of whiskey between two mouths, but—

You force yourself out the door. The thought of being with anyone is making you feel sick.

-

You work. You pay your rent. You buy groceries. You make dinner and eat it, make it last for a couple of days. When business gets slow at Cristian’s, you live off of black coffee and whatever else remains in your fridge, in your barren cabinets, for over a week.

It would be easier to simply find a second job, but you like the store. Like Cristian. You don’t mind it when his daughters come with him, wreaking havoc and shrieking with giggles, chasing each other around the store while you sit behind the counter and do whatever could be defined as babysitting. You turn a blind eye when they grab sodas and candy bars from the shelves, when Marta stage-whispers, “Don’t tell tati, Yasha!”

“Do I ever?” you always ask her, as if Cristian doesn’t notice things missing every single time she and Bianca come by.

In the midst of the sudden mundanity your life has taken on, you go to bars after work. You don’t get drunk, but you try to. Try to let your muscles loosen and shake off the tension in your shoulders.

People like you, for some reason. You think you’re standoffish and think your humor is too dry. You think you used to be charming, once upon a time, but that’s changed, and the way people approach you has changed a bit, too. They think they can coax you out of your shell. Men and women alike, so you go for either party. You learned to live with it once, so you have no problem accepting it now.

You see men holding hands in public sometimes, on streets or on the train, and you think maybe the world is changing after all.

-

You’ve stopped looking over your shoulder so much. You don’t worry about being found by SHIELD, or the final, desperate few of HYDRA that remain. You know they’ve scrambled off, know they’re in search of new masters, or hiding in some remote corner of the world, licking their wounds and hoping to reform when the time is right, but there are bigger things going on in the world, and as far as they’re concerned, The Winter Soldier is dead, rotting at the bottom of the Potomac River.

You sleep through the night more often than you wake up with a forgotten word on your lips or a barely swallowed scream. Your ribs don’t jut out anymore, your face has lost its hollowness, has become flushed and healthy. Your hair has grown out longer, and you don’t want to cut it or buzz it all off again now that you have the choice not to. It’s no longer limp and lifeless, but thicker and healthier, soft in your fingers.

Most importantly, you take care of yourself. You run in the morning, and sometimes in the evening, too. It helps you sleep, helps you turn your brain off for a while.

When you’re not running and you’re not working, you’re walking, mapping the city out with your feet. You go to the library. You buy groceries. You find side jobs, and become your building’s unofficial handyman. It’s more money in your pocket, and because of the work you do, your rent is lowered ever so slightly.

Despite this, your apartment is still bare, but it’s not as decrepit as it was. You have an emergency bag, filled with cash and credit cards and your passports, hidden in the floorboards below your kitchen, but you don’t check it as often anymore. This has begun to feel more like somewhere you want to spend years in, whether you initially wanted it to or not.

You don’t hear from Natalia throughout this, even though your phone is now on at all times. Somehow, you’re not worried for her. She’s made it this far. She can make it even further.   
  
You’ll take it as a good sign. If there was something wrong, she’d tell you. She’d tell you to drop everything and start running.

Strange, how that thought is becoming harder and harder to fathom.

-

You adjust. You adapt. Over months and months. You plan on spending Christmas alone again, until Cristian insists you have dinner with him and his family, and that means you can’t arrive empty-handed. You don’t bring much in the way of gifts—dolls for the girls and a bottle of whiskey for Cristian, but it seems to be appreciated all the same.

You end up feeling lighter, happier than you expect to, with only Cristian and his daughters for company, but there’s a oneness, a kinship between the four of you, and you’re grateful for it. Grateful you’re not sitting in your apartment with only a portable heater and the television for company.

January brings in a wet sort of cold, but no snow. February and March are brisk, and when April comes, you realize it’s been a year since you found yourself in Bucharest.

One full year on your own, without a single slip-up.

Throughout this, memories flood in, and bring on a steady trickle of knowledge and clarity. Your mind and your journals are packed with them.

Names and birthdays, thick summer heat and the bone-chilling winters that came with Christmas. Tugging an orange from a Christmas stocking, peeling it and pulling it apart, tasting the bright sweetness of it. The street you grew up on comes back, too, along the street you moved onto with Steve after his ma died. 

Water Street, Van Brunt, Mr. Trentini’s grocery store on Bridge Street, where you worked until you couldn’t anymore. The big movie house downtown, where you saw double features whenever you had the money to spare.

You remember working at the docks in Red Hook, working at the Cohens’ bakery, polishing your only pair of dress shoes every Friday night and ironing your suit for a long Saturday evening at a dance hall. Training at Fort McCoy until your bones felt like gelatin and you couldn’t be bothered to move until the next morning, being shirtless and slick with sweat and blood in Guadalcanal, your dog tags clinking against your chest.  _ Barnes, James B. 32557038 _ . Those numbers whispered over and over again, helping you cling to memories that were already slipping away before you were dragged off Zola’s table by what you thought was a hallucination, smiling down at you like you’d hung the goddamn moon and stars themselves.

It doesn’t leave you chilled to the bone anymore, remembering, even when the things you’d rather forget snake their way in. Pain shooting through your body, your hands doing unspeakable things. It leaves fear and disgust thick in your throat, but you’re trying to make peace with it. Trying to let the fact that you didn’t ask for any of it happen sink in. With every mission returning crystal-clear in your mind’s eye, the torture that preceded and followed. 

You were subdued, forced to obey. Forced to follow orders. You were beaten and punished like a wild animal whether you did or didn’t.

That’s what keeps you from slipping, remembering that, more than anything, you were unwilling. When you begin to feel the guilt for your actions creep in, you shove past it as best as you can. You know you were used as a weapon. You know you weren’t loyal. You tell yourself  _ I didn’t ask for it, I didn’t deserve it  _ until you believe it. Until it’s the truest thing you know.

-

Each day, the temptation to understand who you were before, to seek out the answers and put your mind to rest grows stronger.

Each day, the itch beneath your skin grows more insistent, threatening to consume you in its ferocity, and you’d be a fool to continue depriving it, trying to stave it off. You may not be who you were before, but you have your memories. You know there’s a part of you that aches for a home that no longer exists, and the only way to fully understand that, to make peace with it, is to see it for yourself, but you know you won’t leave what you’ve built here. Not yet.

So, you start researching.

You spend hours sitting in front of a computer in the library, reading pages and pages worth of interviews, scouring Wikipedia, You read until your eyes burn, and you study picture after picture—of yourself, of your family, of the Howling Commandos, of Steve. You come across a photo of yourself that you recognize, insides twisting almost painfully.

it's one you took in Noumea with...with, God,  _ Bernadette’s _ camera. She was behind it, and caught you on the edge of laughing when she snapped at you to stop fidgeting and wasting her film. You were by the beach, you remember, your pants rolled up to your shins, your shoes and socks left on the sand beside Bernadette’s. Your face hurt from grinning. Your hair went wavy in the salty air, and Bernadette’s got even curlier. 

For a little while, you think you may have been stupidly happy with her, and maybe marrying her or actually writing her would have been the right thing to do, but after Guadalcanal, there were too many ghosts in your head, and once you got back to Brooklyn, she was the furthest thing from your mind.

You try to think of the  _ maybe _ ’s left in Noumea, the promises you could have made. Maybe there would have been more Barneses in the world, maybe you would have taken that honorable discharge and started your life.  _ Maybe, maybe, maybe _

But that wasn’t what you wanted, was it? Even then, your mind drifted away from her, still enraptured with Steve, still focused on the thought of never seeing him again if you were blown to bits.

You wonder where he is now. He’s rarely in the news, and never on TV. He’s disappeared without a trace, and you aren’t sure what to think of that.

Is he still in New York? Has he thrown himself back into the line of fire or has he receded from it completely? Is he the same as you left him or has the weight of the past and the future crashed down on his shoulders, too?

For a time, your memories revolved around him. You remembered the pale line of Steve’s throat and your fingers tracing down his big nose, his bony elbows digging into your ribs. You remembered him scrawny and you remembered him enormous and you remember him young and frail and so sick and lost in the thick of a fever, he was barely aware of his surroundings. You remembered being young —you never imagined yourself as a child, not until then— tearing down the street away from his tenement, the sound of a prayer still echoing through your ears, unsure if it was the cold stinging your eyes, or the fear of a loss that seemed inevitable.

You try to think of the last time you saw him, but it leaves you scraped raw from the inside our. You try to find something from before, but then he’s drained of color, choking on filthy water, half-dead because of you, and you see enough of that when you try to sleep, so sometimes, the past is preferable.

-

It’s not long before you see Steve’s face again.

It’s plastered on all the flatscreens of the bar you’re sat in. You watch Sokovia float into the air, a hulking slab of concrete and vulnerable bodies. Steve is streaked with dirt and blood, fighting a giant goddamn  _ robot _ with the rest of the Avengers.

Of course you’ve seen their faces before. Seen them everywhere. Stark, Natalia, Thor, and the rest. They all seem to egg each other on in their chaos, and Steve, for all intents and purposes, is still pulling the same schtick as before—taking the fall for everyone else.

“Oh, you asshole,” you mutter into your pint of warm beer, and then swallow it down for good measure. The last gulp is acrid in the back of your throat, almost gives you a full body shiver. It masks the senseless anger, hot and tasting of bile, trying to rise up. “You fucking asshole.”

No one is paying attention to you, so you don’t care if anyone somehow overhears. They’re all too enraptured by what’s happening on screen like it’s a sports game, but you’d rather not see it. You’ve grown so sick of disaster, of chaos. 

You leave money on the bar, tucked under your empty glass, and stalk out onto the street.

-

You’re on the same side of the world, and Steve doesn’t even know it. 

You almost feel bad about it, but at the same time, you’d rather not have the rug pulled from under your feet. The thought of seeing Steve again is a difficult one, and you think you’re more prepared to leave the country at a moment’s notice than look him in the eye right now.

Even if you managed to find each other, you’re not sure what would happen. You’re not sure whether you would run or let the temptation to let everything you’ve felt, everything that’s come back to you, spill out of your mouth and beg for forgiveness. The part of you that wants to feel close to someone, to something, to  _ him _ wants that, but the other, more dominant part knows you can’t do that.

You’re not ready. You’re not ready for whatever he might want to offer you, whether it’s love or friendship or nothing at all. 

-

Two months later, when the trees are green and lush and the air turns from warm to hot, your phone rings.

  
You answer it without bothering to read the caller ID, fumbling with your keys as you let yourself into the apartment.

“Hey, stranger,” Natalia says before you can speak, low and warm even through the receiver. “Up for a visit?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> But baxt sastimos = Lots of luck and happiness
> 
> Ekšêl maj berš, muro pral = One hundred more years, my brother
> 
> Če dinlo san = How stupid you are


End file.
